ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 147 



into the high forests and fields. They seem to 

 know instinctively that it is unsafe to linger near 

 the edge of the water. 



In case the overflow occurs in March or April, 

 when the trees are full of fresh buds and blos- 

 soms, the turkeys have an easy time, living in the 

 treetops, fluttering from branch to branch, gath- 

 ering the tender buds and young leaves of such 

 trees as the ash, hackberry, pin oak, and the 

 yellow bloom of the birch, all of which are favor- 

 ite foods, while of the beech and some other trees 

 it is the fringe-like bloom they eat. They will 

 remain in the trees out of sight of land for months 

 if they have plenty of buds and young leaves to 

 eat, and keep in fair flesh ; but the flesh is not so 

 palatable as when feeding on mast or grain. 



I once knew a flock of fifteen turkeys to re- 

 main in trees above an overflow for two months. 

 I could see them daily from my cabin on the bank 

 of a lake in Alabama, and could sit at my table 

 and watch them fluttering as they fed on the 

 hackberry buds. They were in sight of a dry, 

 piney wood, and a flight of three hundred yards 

 across a lake would have taken them to the dry 



