ON CALLERS AND CALLING 191 



be the case by the long interval between gobbles ; 

 if it be fifteen to twenty minutes, you may be 

 certain a hen is with him. 



You cannot always be sure that a cessation of 

 gobbling is for the purpose of attending the hen 

 or of coming to you, but you will soon find out if 

 you wait, as the turkey is sure to strut and 

 gobble near the place after the caress is over; 

 this has been my experience hundreds of times; 

 in fact it is characteristic and habitual, and it 

 rarely happens otherwise. Here is an instance: 

 Two young men accompanied me once to a creek 

 near the margin of a large prairie in Texas to see 

 me call an old gobbler. At the dawn of day the 

 gobbler broke forth into a lively gobbling, when 

 we proceeded to an old fallen pine log to call 

 him. Having waited for him to fly down from 

 his roost, I began the regulation series of calls, 

 clucks, etc. The turkey was a great gobbler 

 and did his share of it, but he would not come 

 immediately to the call. After a while one of 

 the boys remarked that he heard a hen yelping 

 near the gobbler, and then all gobbling ceased, 

 and the boys remarked he had gone off with the 



