THE WILD TURKEY. 219 



to any other kind of nutriment ; but their more general 

 predilection is in favour of the acorn, on which they 

 rapidly fatten. When an unusually profuse crop of 

 acorns is produced in a particular section of the country 

 which they mhabit, great numbers of Turkeys are en- 

 ticed from their ordinary haunts in the surrounding 

 districts. About the beginning of October, while the 

 mast stdl remains on the trees, they assemble in flocks 

 and direct their course to the rich bottom lands ; and 

 so constant is their appearance that the season of this 

 irruption is known to the Indians by the name of the 

 Turkey month. At this time the males, which are 

 usually termed Gobblers, associate in parties numbering 

 from ten to a hundred ; while the females either move 

 about singly with their young, then nearly two-thirds 

 grown, or in company with other females, and their 

 families form troops of seventy or eighty individuals. 

 The object of this arrangement is to avoid coming in 

 contact with the old males, who, whenever opportunity 

 offers, attack and destroy the young by repeated blows 

 upon the skull. They travel, however, in the same 

 direction, and on foot, unless when diverted by circum- 

 stances from their usual course. 



When they arrive at a river they select the highest 

 eminences on its bank, and there remain for a day or 

 more, the males gobbling obstreperously and strutting 

 with more than usual importance, while the females 

 and even the young assume somewhat of the pompous 

 air of the males. The attitudes and note of the domestic 

 Turkey when excited, must be sufficiently familiar to 

 our readers to render superfluous any more particular 

 description of this curious display. At length, when 

 fully recruited and animated for the task, they mount 

 all together to the tops of the highest trees, and at a 

 signal from the leader wing their way towards the 



