RAISING TURKEYS. 201 
law of nature, which decrees that only the fittest should 
live, and in the lower animal world these are necessarily 
chosen for their physical qualities. 
The battles between the males are often waged with 
such desperate valor that more than one combatant is 
sent to join the great majority, as they deliver very heavy 
blows at each other’s heads, and do not give up a contest 
until they are dead, or so thoroughly exhausted as to be 
scarcely able to move. 
When one has killed another, he is said sometimes to 
caress the dead bird in an apparently affectionate manner, 
as if it were very sorry to have been compelled to do such 
a deed, but could not help it, owing to the force of cir- 
cumstances; yet I have seen the winner in a tournament 
in such a rage that it not only killed its rival, but pecked 
out its eyes after it was dead. When the victors have 
won their brides, they keep together until the latter com. 
mence laying, and then separate, for the males would 
destroy the eggs if they could, and the hens, knowing 
this, carefully screen them. The males are often fol. 
lowed by more than one hen; but they are not so polyg- 
amous as their domestic congeners, as I never heard of 
a gobbler having more than two or three females under 
his protection. The adult gobblers drive the young 
males away during the erotic season, and will not even 
permit them to gobble if they can help it; so that the 
latter are obliged to keep by themselves, generally in 
parties of from six to ten, unless some of the veterans 
are killed, and then they occupy the vacated places, ac- 
cording to the order of their prowess. 
Some aged males may also be found wandering through 
the woods in parties of two, three, four or five, but they 
seldom mingle with the flocks, owing, apparently, to ap- 
proaching old age. They are exceedingly shy and vigilant, 
and so wild that they fly immediately from an imaginary 
danger created by their own suspicious nature. They 
