92 INCUBATION RANGE. 



until almost starved, rather than quit her nest : 

 hence the necessity of constant attendance with both 

 victuals and water. She is also a most affectionate 

 mother; and that most curious and accurate ob- 

 server, Buffon, remarks her soft and plaintive cry, 

 with her different tones and inflections of voice, ex- 

 pressive of her various feelings. 



The above remarks, however, of Buffon, are to be 

 received with a due degree of circumspection, since 

 I have known unsteady sitters among turkeys; and 

 however affectionate, the turkey hen, from her natu- 

 ral heedlessness and stupidity, is the most careless 

 of mothers, and being a great traveller herself, will 

 drag her brood over field, heath, or bog, never cast- 

 ing a regard behind her to call in her straggling 

 chicks, nor stopping while she has one left to follow 

 her. She differs beside, in this particular, from the 

 industrious common hen ; she never scratches for 

 her chicks, leaving them entirely to their own in- 

 stinct and their own industry. On these accounts, 

 where turkeys are bred to any extent, and are per- 

 mitted to range, it is necessary to allow them a 

 KEEPER. The turkey-hen is nevertheless extremely 

 vigilant and quick in the discovery of any birds of 

 prey in the air, which may endanger her brood, and 

 has the faculty, by a peculiar cry, of communicating 

 her alarm, on which the chicks immediately seek 

 shelter, or squat themselves upon the earth : but she 

 will not, from her timid nature, fight for her brood as 

 the common hen will. The domesticated as well as 

 the wild turkey, runs with considerable speed. 



The CHICKS must be withdrawn from the nest as 



