i 



THE WILD TURKEY 295 



sides of the river. The turkeys were particularly fine- 

 flavored, their food being abundant, consisting mostly 

 of wild grapes, rose apples (the seed pod of the wild 

 rose), cotton wood buds and hackberries, the latter ap- 

 parently their favorite, at least to judge by the quantity 

 contained in their crops. 



"The last turkey killed by me was at a return camp 

 bout thirty miles above Fort Randall. Beyond that 

 point I have no personal experience, but while stationed 

 at Fort Pierre I was told by the interpreter of the 

 fort that turkeys formerly were quite abundant in the 

 heavy timber about the mouth of the Big Cheyenne 

 River about thirty miles above." 



The statement made by the interpreter at Fort Pierre 

 furnishes quite satisfactory evidence that turkeys were 

 once found on the Missouri River as far north as the 

 mouth of the Cheyenne River. 



Colonel Scott has also called my attention to the diary 

 of Lieut. Rufus Saxton, printed in Vol. I, Pacific R. R. 

 Reports, 1853-4, which says of Cedar Island, on the 

 Missouri River, below Ft. Pierre: "Saw wild turkeys 

 for the first time. They are seldom seen above this 

 point, and have never, I believe, been found beyond the 

 Rocky Mountains." The reference, of course, is to 

 the northern Rocky Mountains. 



Alexander Henry, the Younger, states that in 1806 

 the Cheyenne Indians coming up from the south 

 brought with them the tails of turkeys which the Man- 

 dans and Minitari greatly desired for use as fans and 

 for which they traded, and from this we may infer that 



