198 PROFITS IN POULTRY. 
HABITS OF THE WILD TURKEY. 
The males commence wooing as early as February ip 
some of the extreme Southern States; but March is the 
opening of the season throughout the country, and 
April the month in which it reaches its highest develop- 
ment. The males may then be heard calling to the 
females from every direction, until the woods ring with 
their loud and liquid cries, which are commenced long 
ere the sun appears above the horizon, and continued 
for hours with the steadiest persistency. As both sexes 
roost apart at this period, the hens avoid answering the 
gobblers for some time, but they finally become less ob- 
durate, and coyly return the call. When the males hear 
this, all within hearing respond promptly and vehe- 
mently, uttering notes similar to those which the domes- 
tic gobblers do when they hear an unusual sound. If the 
female answering the call is on the ground, the males fly 
to her and parade before her with all the pompous strut- 
ting that characterizes the family. They spread and 
erect their tails, depress their wings with a quivering 
motion and trail them along the ground, and draw the 
head back on the shoulders, as if to increase their dignity 
and importance; then wheel, and march, and swell, and 
gobble, as if they were trying to outdo each other in airs 
and graces. The female, however, pays little attention 
to these ceremonious parades, and demurely looks on while 
the rivals for her affection try to outdo one another in 
playing the gallant and dandy. When the strutting and 
gobbling fail to win her, the candidates for matrimony 
challenge each other to mortal combat, and whichever is 
successful in the contest walks away with her in the most 
nonchalant manner. The easy indifference of the hen as to 
which she will follow may not be pleasing to persons im- 
bued with romantic feelings, yet she is only obeying a wise 
