TURKEY SHOOTING 437 



Audubon says that sometimes, after people had be- 

 come surfeited with the flesh of turkeys, they failed 

 to visit the traps which they had baited for some time, 

 and so the poor birds were allowed to starve to death. 



Another means of slaughtering turkeys, of which 

 we read, is by laying a trail of corn in some place 

 where turkeys congregate; then, hiding near at hand, 

 the gunner prepares to shoot at their heads and necks 

 when all are busily engaged in picking up the corn. 



In April, 1900, E. W. Nelson, the distinguished 

 field naturalist of the Biological Survey, described a 

 new sub-species of wild turkey from Arizona, under 

 the name Meleagris gallopavo merriami. This bird is 

 found in the mountains of Arizona, western New Mex- 

 ico, and south as far as the Mexican border, extending 

 north into southwestern Colorado. 



Little has been written about this bird, which pre- 

 sumably does not differ in habits from its relatives. 

 Because it is so little known, we are glad to quote an 

 account written by E. A. Goldman, who secured for the 

 Biological Survey the specimens from which Mr. 

 Nelson described the subspecies. 



He has been Mr. Nelson's companion on many 

 expeditions, and in the Auk, in 1902, described a trip he 

 made into the Mogollon Mountains of northern Ari- 

 zona to secure a series of wild turkeys. He started 

 in January, 1900, and was very successful. The 

 weather was cold, and promised snow, which raised 

 the collector's spirits, since, of course, with snow on 

 the ground turkeys would be more easily tracked and 



