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JVild Turkey- Shooting. 



earth. The sun is now low on the horizon ; let us go down by the 

 cypress breaks ; perhaps we can roost one. Again we are quietly 

 seated, and in a little while hear the flopping of wings ; they are 

 flying up to roost. We might now slip under the roost and shoot ; but 

 this is unsportsmanlike ; so we will quietly retire, and return in the 

 morning and try our skill in calling a gobbler down. There are many 

 ways of hunting turkeys. I have sometimes used a tame gobbler as 

 a decoy. The wild gobblers, when they hear the strut and gobble of 

 a strange turkey, will come forward to give battle to the intruder. 

 Then they are hunted with dogs. A gobbler can be run down 

 and caught with hounds ; he is a heavy bird, and after two or 

 three flights cannot rise to fly again. After the spring season is 

 past, the gobblers cease gobbling and wander about alone, or in 

 small flocks, until after the young broods are large enough to take 

 care of themselves ; then they gather together in large flocks 

 as the fall comes on. At this season, they are hunted with dogs. 

 A well-trained pointer who runs silently on the track and dashes 

 in and scatters the flock with a quick bark is the best for this 

 service. After the flock is scattered, the hunter conceals himself, 

 and in a little while they will begin to call together. If it is in the 

 early fall, they make a note like pee, pee, pee. As they grow 

 older, the call is coarser. They are easily called up and killed at 

 this season. Even a novice may deceive a young turkey that has 

 never been hunted. The instruments used for turkey-calls are vari- 

 ous ; the wing-bone of a turkey is the most primitive instrument, or 

 the vibration of a leaf placed against the lips. I use a hollow tube 

 or a block with a piece of wire scraped against a whet-stone. 



