4 WILD TURKEY. 



ending in bloodshed, and often in the loss of many lives, the weaker fall- 

 ing vnider the repeated blows inflicted upon their head by the stronger. 



I have often been mucli diverted, while watching two males in fierce 

 conflict, by seeing them move alternately backwards and forwards, as 

 either had obtained a better hold, their wings drooping, their tails partly 

 raised, their body-feathers ruffled, and their beads covered with blood. 

 If, as they thus struggle, and gasp for breath, one of them should lose 

 his hold, his chance is over, for the other, still holding fast, hits him vio- 

 lently with spurs and wings, and in a few minutes brings him to the 

 ground. The moment he is dead, the conqueror treads him under foot, 

 but, what is strange, not with hatred, but with all the motions which he 

 employs in caressing the female. 



When the male has discovered and made up to the female (whether 

 such a combat has previously taken place or not), if she be more than 

 one year old, she also struts and gobbles, turns round him as he con- 

 tinues strutting, suddenly opens her wings, throws herself towards him, 

 as if to put a stop to his idle delay, lays herself down, and receives his 

 dilatory caresses. If the cock meet a young hen, he alters his mode of 

 procedure. He struts in a different manner, less pompously and more 

 energetically, moves with rapidity, sometimes rises from the ground, tak- 

 ing a short flight around the hen, as is the manner of some Pigeons, the 

 Red-breasted Thrush, and many other birds, and on alighting, runs with 

 all his might, at the same time rubbing his tail and wings along the 

 ground, for the space of perhaps ten yards. He then draws near the 

 timorous female, allays her fears by purring, and when she at length 

 assents, caresses her. 



When a male and a female have thus come together, I believe the con- 

 nexion continues for that season, although the former by no means con- 

 fines his attentions to one female, as I have seen a cock caress several 

 hens, when he happened to fall in with them in the same place, for the 

 first time. After this the hens follow their favourite cock, roosting in 

 his immediate neighbourhood, if not on the same tree, until they begin 

 to lay, when they separate themselves, in order to save their eggs from 

 the male, who would break them all, for the purpose of protracting his 

 sexual enjoyments. The females then carefully avoid him, excepting 

 during a short period each day. After this the males become clumsy 

 and slovenly, if one may say so, cease to fight with each other, give up 

 gobbling or calling so frequently, and assume so careless a habit, that 



