ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 145 



January, or February, before the buds have ap- 

 peared or have become large enough to be of any 

 value as food. Under these conditions they 

 must fly from tree to tree until they reach dry 

 ground, or starve to death. 



Although I have never known of a gobbler 

 being thus starved to death, I have seen them so 

 emaciated they could hardly stand. One inci- 

 dent of this sort I will relate : I found four very 

 large old gobblers in an overflowed swamp on the 

 Tombigbee River in Alabama, and as it was in 

 February, it was too early in the year for herb- 

 age to begin the spring growth. The river had 

 overflowed the bottoms suddenly, and it was a 

 long way to dry land, perhaps three miles, so the 

 turkeys could get little or nothing to sustain life. 

 I shot one of these gobblers, not thinking of their 

 probable condition, and found I had bagged a 

 skeleton. 



If the bottoms are not over three miles wide, 

 turkeys will usually, on approach of rising water, 

 start for the dry ridges farther back from the 

 river, and there remain until the waters steal 

 upon them, when they will fly into the trees. 



