298 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
nearly 20 per cent. In the western country turkeys 
are great eaters of grasshoppers. They also destroy 
the tobacco worm and moth when they can get them. 
The breeding season for the turkey ranges from 
February to May, according to the latitude which the 
bird inhabits. At the breeding time, and, indeed, 
throughout the year until mating in the early spring, 
the hens and young birds associate together and apart 
from the gobblers. 
At mating time the gobbler’s actions are those of the 
domestic turkey. He gobbles loudly, struts and spreads 
his tail, drags his wings on the ground and puffs him- 
self out until he has made the proper impression on 
the hen. Often several birds are going through this 
performance about a single hen, and fights between 
the males are common, and, it is said, sometimes with 
fatal results. 
The nest is a mere hollow scratched in the ground, 
lined or not lined with straws, grass and a feather or 
two. The eggs vary in number from eight to four- 
teen. Captain Bendire reports a case where there were 
twenty-six eggs in a nest, but two hens were at the nest, 
one sitting on the eggs and one standing close by 
them. It is likely, therefore, that occasionally two hen 
turkeys share a nest, as two quail sometimes do. 
Like many ground-nesting birds, the turkey is ex- 
ceedingly hard to see when on her nest, and of the 
turkey, as of other birds, various instances of this 
have been related. Captain B. F. Goss, writing May, 
1882, in southern Texas, says: 
