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THE WILD TURKEY. 



Meleagris Gallopavo, Linn. 



PLATE VI. Female and Youvg. 



The Male Turkey has already been described, and you have seen that 

 magnificent bird roaming in the forests, approaching the haunts of man, 

 and performing all the offices for which he is destined in the economy of 

 nature. Here you have his mate, now converted into a kind and anxi- 

 ous parent, leading her young progeny, with measured step and watcliful 

 eye, through the intricacies of the forest. The chickens, still covered 

 with down, are running among her feet in pursuit of insects. One is 

 picking its sprouting plumelets, while another is ridding itself of a tick 

 which has fastened upon its little wing. 



In addition to what has already been said respecting the manners of 

 the Wild Turkey, I have a few circumstances to mention, which relate 

 chiefly to both sexes. Its flight is powerful and rapid, and is composed 

 of strong flappings, which enable it to rise with ease to the highest 

 branches of the largest forest trees. When it starts from the ground, it 

 generally leaves marks which are made by the first motions of its wings, 

 which are so powerful as raise the withered leaves around it. When the 

 ground is covered with snow, the impressions are so distinctly defined as 

 to imitate the form of the pinions. When it leaves its perch, it flaps its 

 wings only a few times at the outset, and then sails for many hundred 

 yards, balancing itself as it proceeds, with great steadiness, until it reaches 

 the ground. If it has flown from its perch with the view of reaching 

 another, it repeats the flappings at intervals of a hundred yards or so. 

 On coming to the ground, it is obliged to run for a few yards, its great 

 weight rendering this necessary to prevent its body from being injured. 



The great strength of a full grown Turkey-cock renders it no easy 

 matter to hold it when but slightly wounded ; and once or twice I have 

 thought myself in jeopardy, when on entering a pen in which six or seven 

 large cocks had imprisoned themselves, their flutterings and struggles 

 rendered it extremely difficult to secure them. 



The Female Turkey, which is considerably inferior in size to the 



