24 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING, 
a quarter of an inch of the bottom, and cut as thin as 
possible. By taking both ends between the thumb and 
fingers, and rubbing it crosswise on the barrels of the 
gun or the butt plate, thé call notes of the hen can be 
produced after a little practice. One that imitates the 
“yelp” of a turkey very well, is made of a piece of wood 
about three inches long, two inches wide, and hollowed 
out until it is quite thin. By inserting a nail or a piece 
of wire in the bottom of this simple apparatus, and 
drawing it across a slate, an erotic gobbler may be coaxed 
within range; but, to be successful, the hand must care- 
fully cover the hole, in order to produce the intonation 
which isso deceptive and alluring. Some persons prefer 
to all these a piece of thin rabber—that known to dentists 
as rubber dam—about three inches long and an inch wide. 
By turning down one edge, and partially articulating the 
notes into it, the yelps and calls can be fairly imitated. 
Even with all these devices, and a perfect mastery of the 
cries of the turkey, one may sit and call for hours with- 
out receiving a response from the wary birds, and if he 
does, they may not so much as deign to approach him. 
The novice who has not mastered the notes of the turkey 
would be more liable to scare away every gobbler in the 
forest with these calls than to bring him within shoot- 
ing distance; to bag one, he must, therefore, resort to 
some other tactics besides calling; but as these are varied 
enough, he need not return empty-handed from a dis- 
rict in which the birds are plentiful. 
The general methods employed in bagging them are, 
to stalk them; to shoot them on their perches during 
moonlight nights; to wait for them in ambush behind a 
baited blind; to work them up over trained dogs and 
bring them down when they are on the wing; to follow 
them to their roosts; and to track them on the snow. 
The latter is perhaps the most unsportsmanlike system, 
as they cannot easily be induced to leave their roosts if 
