Pheasants and Turkeys 



destroy eggs or chicks in a fit of passion. Evidently jealousy is 

 unknown to her, however, for many nests or the area of ground 

 that answers as such have been reported where two hens de- 

 posited their cream colored eggs, finely and evenly speckled with 

 brown, thus doubling the ordinary clutch into one of two dozen 

 eggs or over. It is thought that, in such cases, the good-natured 

 incubators relieve each other. Snakes, hawks, and other enemies 

 in search of so toothsome a morsel as a turkey chick, and heavy 

 rains that chill the delicate, downy fledgelings, decimate a brood, 

 however faithfully tended by a devoted mother. It is not until 

 they are able to fly into high roosts that her mind is relieved of 

 many anxieties ; and only when some dire calamity sweeps away 

 her entire family does she attempt to raise a second brood. 

 Insects, especially grasshoppers, appear to be the approved diet' 

 for all young gallinaceous fowl ; the more extensive bill of fare 

 of fruits, grain, nuts, seeds, and leaf buds comes later, when a 

 toughened gizzard may receive the quantities of gravel necessary 

 to grind the grain. Quit, quit, call the feeding birds, though, 

 like domestic fowls, to quit is the last thing they seem ready to do. 

 Where food is abundant they may wander far, but never from a 

 chosen region, for they are not migratory ; nevertheless the pointer 

 that scents a small flock in autumn, when the innocence of young 

 birds makes shooting a possibility to the expert, leads his master 

 a rough and wearisome chase before a shot is offered at this 

 peerless game bird. 



290 



