236 WILD TURKEY. 
parts of the United States; in New England, it even appears 
to have been already destroyed one hundred and fifty years 
back. I am, however, credibly informed that wild turkeys 
are yet to be found in the mountainous districts of Sussex 
county, New Jersey. The most eastern part of Pennsylvania 
now inhabited by them appears to be Lancaster county ; and 
they are often observed in the oak woods near Philipsburg, 
Clearfield county. Those occasionally brought to the Phil- 
adelphia and New York markets are chiefly obtained in 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 
The wild turkeys do not confine themselves to any particu- 
lar food; they eat maize; all sorts of berries, fruits, grasses, 
beetles, and even tadpoles, young frogs, and lizards, are 
occasionally found in their crops; but where the becan-nut 1s 
plenty, they prefer that fruit to any other nourishment ; their 
more general predilection is, however, for the acorn, on which 
they rapidly fatten. When an unusually profuse crop of 
acorns is produced in a particular section of country, great 
numbers of turkeys are enticed from their ordinary haunts in 
the surrounding districts. About the beginning of October, 
while the mast still remains on the trees, they assemble in 
flocks, and direct their course to the rich bottom lands. At 
this season they are observed in great numbers on the Ohio 
and Mississippi. The time of this irruption is known to the 
Indians by the name of the turkey month. 
The males, usually termed gobbdlers, associate in parties 
numbering from ten to a hundred, and seek their food apart 
from the females ; whilst the latter either move about singly 
with their young, then nearly two-thirds grown, or, in com- 
pany with other females and their families, form troops, some- 
times consisting of seventy or eighty individuals, all of whom 
are intent on avoiding the old males, who, whenever oppor- 
tunity offers, attack and destroy the young by repeated blows 
on the skull. All parties, however, travel in the same direc- 
tion, and on foot, unless they are compelled to seek their 
individual safety by flying from the hunter’s dog, or their 
