94 SECOND BIENNIAL EEPORT [ W. VA. 



warning that will bring real protection and that will preserve for us a bird 

 that is the joy of hunter and naturalist alike? 



"And now remains the Wild Turkey. It is the largest as well as the noblest 

 of our game birds. Once common in our woodlands, nourished by the millions 

 of nuts that fall from our forest trees, the food of pioneer hunters and! ex- 

 plorers, a very king of the forest, he has now been almost conquered and has 

 withdrawn to the most inaccessible parts of our mountains. Throughout the 

 state, the Wild Turkey is now rare. Occasionally, report brings us word that 

 one has wandered out of the woods or has come down out of the mountains 

 and has been shot. 



"The turkey question is one of great interest. Scientific men have spent 

 much, time in the discussion of the various races of the Wild Turkey. The bird 

 is interesting to us as the progenitor of the common domestic turkey. Of this 

 Dr. Judd says, 'The common tame turkey is a descendant of birds taken to 

 Europe from Mexico by the Spandiards early in the sixteenth century. The wild 

 turkeys of the United States originally occupied a large area extending from 

 the coast of Massachusetts, west to Colorado and south to Florida and the 

 Mexican border. While they are of the same species as the Mexican bird, they 

 have been modified by the varing conditions of their environment into four 

 forms, distinguished by differences in color. The best known of these is the 

 common wild turkey of the Mississippi Valley and the eastern states. The 

 others are the Florida Wild Turkey, the Eio Grande Turkey, and the Mer- 

 riam Turkey of the southern Bocky Mountains, from Colorado south through 

 New Mexico ard Arizona.' It is said that the common bronze turkey is a 

 descendant of the wild turkey of the east. It is not necessary, however, to 

 discuss the descent of the domestic turkey, nor to trace the varying races of 

 the Wild Turkey, within the limits of this paper. My purpose is, in closing, 

 to call ycur attention once more to the game qualities of this great bird. 

 Large, with flesh of excellent quality, comparatively hardy, increasing with 

 fair rapidity, the Wild Turkey is a game bird of greatest importance. 



"Occasionally, when I have gone into the mountains, the gobble of the 

 Wild Turkey has been heard; now and then have I picked up a feather which 

 some noble bird has lost. But the species is becoming ever rarer, and after' a 

 few more invasions of its home; after a few more are killed and exported from 

 the state; after a few more of these vanishing game birds are wantonly 

 slaughtered; and after a few more fires sweep over the wooded forests of West 

 Virginia, where the Wild Turkey makes his last nesting place, this bird of 

 bronzed feather and majestic stride will be gone from our woods forever." 



