144 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



flows occur, the turkeys are either forced to take 

 up their abode in the trees, or to leave their feed- 

 ing ground and retreat to the high lands that are 

 not overflowed. In the latter case there is little 

 trouble in procuring food by scratching in the 

 dry leaves or gleaning in the grain fields. But 

 turkeys are hard to drive from their haunts, even 

 by high waters, and more often than not they 

 will stubbornly remain in the immediate locality 

 of their favorite swamps and river bottoms by 

 taking to the trees until the waters have subsided ; 

 they will persistently remain in the trees even 

 for two or three months, with the water five to 

 twenty-five feet in depth beneath them. At 

 such times they subsist upon the green buds of 

 the trees upon which they perch, and the few 

 grapes and berry seeds that may remain attached 

 to the vines which they can reach from the 

 limbs. It is truly remarkable how long these 

 birds can subsist and keep in fair flesh under such 

 conditions. There is a critical time during these 

 overflows, when turkeys are hard pressed in that 

 they may obtain sufficient food to sustain life; 

 this is when the rivers overflow in December 5 



