ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 143 



rection for some distance. Suddenly, one finds 

 a morsel of some kind to eat, and begins to scratch 

 among the leaves, the whole flock doing like- 

 wise, and they will keep this up until a large 

 space, perhaps half an acre of land, is so gone 

 over. What induces them to scratch up one 

 place so thoroughly and leave others untouched 

 would seem a mystery to the inexperienced; but 

 close observation will show that such scratching 

 indicates the presence of some kind of food under 

 the leaves. It may be the nuts of the beech, oak, 

 chestnut, chinquapin, black or sweet gum tree, 

 pecan nut, grape, or muscadine seed. If one will 

 observe the scratchings, it will be seen that they 

 occur under one or another of such trees or vines. 

 Thus they travel on, stopping to scratch at in- 

 tervals until their crops are filled. 



Under certain conditions, wild turkeys are 

 compelled to seek numerous sources to ob- 

 tain a supply of food, as when there is a failure 

 of the mast crop, which affords the principal 

 supply of their food, or when there is an over- 

 flow of the great swamps or river bottoms, which 

 turkeys so often inhabit. When such over- 



