122 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



est plenty. In this manner flock follows flock 

 until one district is entirely deserted while 

 another is overflowed by them, but as these mi- 

 grations are irregular, and extend over vast ex- 

 panse of country, it is necessary that I should 

 describe the manner in which they take place. 

 About the beginning of October, when scarcely 

 any seed and fruit has yet fallen from the trees, 

 the birds assemble in flocks and gradually move 

 toward the rich bottom lands of the Ohio and 

 the Mississippi. The males, or as they are com- 

 monly called, gobblers, associate in parties from 

 ten to one hundred, and search for food apart 

 from the females, while the latter are singly ad- 

 vancing, each with its brood about two thirds 

 grown, or in connection with other families, 

 often amounting to seventy or eighty individuals 

 all intent on shunning the old cocks, which, even 

 when the young brood have attained this size, 

 will fight and often destroy them by repeated 

 blows on the head." This last assertion of the 

 great author I feel obliged to criticise. In my 

 vast experience with the turkey I have never met 

 with anything to justify such a statement. I 



