Widmann A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 83 



izecl a club of some ninety members a few years ago, leased 

 several thousand acres, raised and liberated some 600 birds. 

 For a year we felt success, but as with the St. L. P. & Agr. Co., 

 it proved failure and I am unable to locate a bird in Greene Co. 

 Some five or six thousand dollars has been spent on those birds. 

 I sent several pairs to north Missouri with like results. " 



*310. MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO SILVESTRIS (Vieill.). Wild Turkey. 



Meleagris gallopavo. Meleagris gallopavo fera. 



Geog. Dist. Formerly entire eastern United States from 

 Florida to Maine, Ontario and Minnesota; west to Kansas and 

 Nebraska; but at present extinct or at the point of extinction 

 in most states except in the southern Alleghanies, the Ozarks 

 and heavily timbered bottoms of southern rivers. Non-mi- 

 gratory. 



In Missouri Wild Turkeys occurred formerly in all parts of 

 the state, along the densely wooded river bottoms of the prairie 

 region, in the flood plains of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, 

 in the swamps of the southeast and throughout the Ozarks. 

 All the early travelers speak of the abundance of the Wild Turkeys. 

 Audubon met with them along the Missouri River to the north- 

 west corner of the state (May 6, 1843), and on his way back 

 he speaks of their abundance, October 14, 1843, between 

 Brunswick and Glasgow. When visiting the Grand River 

 valley near Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Dr. Hoy makes the 

 following note: "Skinned a fine old gobbler shot by a friend; 

 wild turkeys are plenty in this vicinity." Across the boundary 

 of north central Missouri, Trippe writes from Decatur Co., la., 

 in 1872: "Not uncommon, but shy and vigilant." But as early 

 as 1888 Mr. Lientz reports from Fayette, Howard Co., " Formerly 

 plenty, now scarce." At present (1906) Wild Turkeys are all 

 gone from northern Missouri, but are still found in small numbers 

 in most parts of the Ozarks and in the swamps of the southeast. 

 According to Dr. W. Mills of Webster Groves a few still breed 

 in St. Louis and Franklin Go's, and the species may hold its own 

 for a while yet, though with two months of open season (No- 

 vember and December), which the new (1905) law allows, 

 this will be a difficult matter. 



