TDEKEY-WISDOM. 241 



consolate mistress ; and he gallantly flies down from 

 his low perch, gives his body a swaggering motion, and 

 utters a distinct and prolonged cluck, significant of 

 both surprise and joy. At that instant the dead twigs 

 near by crack beneath a heavy tread, and off starts the 

 bird, under the impression that he is caught ; but the 

 meanderinojs of some ruminating: old cow informs him 

 of his mistake. Composing himself, he listens, until a 

 low cluck in the distance reaches his ear. 



Now, our gobbler is an old bird, not to be caught 

 with chaff, and several times he has, as if by a miracle, 

 escaped from harm with his life ; he has grown very 

 cunning indeed. He will not roost two successive 

 nights upon the same tree, so that daylight never 

 exposes him to the eye of the hunter, who has hidden 

 away in. the night with the intention of killing him in 

 the morning's dawn. He never gobbles without running 

 at least a short distance afterwards, as if he were ashamed 

 of the noise he makes ; he looks on everything as full of 

 danger, and his experience during his life has height- 

 ened the instinct. Twice v/hen young he w'as coaxed 

 within gunshot, but thanks to some imperfection in 

 the manufacture of the percussion caps, he managed 

 to escape clear. After that, some idle schoolboy, who 

 practised a species of ventriloquism, fooled him, and 

 he would have been slain, had not the urchin, in 

 his anxiety to kill him, overloaded his gun. Three 

 times did he very nearly meet with death by heedlessly 



R 



