ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 121 



braces about three months, December, Janu- 

 ary, and February, and part of March. The 

 hens are more sociable and gregarious in their 

 ways than the males, collecting in immense 

 flocks. The flocks of the gobblers are seldom 

 more than fifteen or twenty, while I have seen 

 from thirty to seventy-five hens in a single flock 

 in which there was not a single male. I imagine 

 the greater size of the flocks containing females 

 to be on account of the gobblers being killed 

 in far greater numbers than the hens. Just 

 before the time of the final separation of the 

 sexes, the young males, their sisters, their 

 mothers, and other old hens that have lost 

 their broods, associate in a very sociable manner, 

 traveling and roosting together. Audubon says : 

 "The turkey is irregularly migratory, as well 

 as irregularly gregarious. In relation to the 

 first of these circumstances, I have to state that 

 whenever the mast in one part of the country 

 happens to exceed that of another, the turkeys 

 are insensibly led to that spot by gradually 

 meeting in their haunts with more fruit the 

 nearer they advance toward the places of great- 



