ORNITHOLOGY 
09 
endears itself to us as does no other 
member of the bird world. Young 
chickens are so lovable that we put 
them in a class by themselves, and 
never compare them with other birds. 
But this mental twist, so applicable to 
school children, does not apply to the 
commercial poultry man. Visit any of 
the large shows and the expert will 
hold np admiringly a hen and say, 
“Isn’t she a beautiful bird?” Seldom 
if ever will he refer to her or to the 
cocks and cockerels as anything but 
birds. “What will you take for your 
bird?” “What prize did your bird 
win ?” 
But considering the beauty of the 
domesticated bird, it is the writer’s 
personal opinion that the most beauti- 
ful is the turkey, especially the male 
commonly known as the gobbler. In 
no other is there such grandeur, so iri- 
descent a sheen of feathers, so noble a 
bearing of the head and a position of 
the body so royal. A strutting tom 
turkey, as country people would style 
it, is indeed the grandest thing in the 
bird world. There is something lost, 
especially in youth, if it has not been 
associated with this farmyard lovable- 
ness and beauty. 
I am aware that I am here on de- 
batable ground. Some one will say 
that the peacock is the more beautiful. 
You may know peacocks but you don’t 
know turkeys. You have not lived 
with turkeys. You do not possess the 
hallowed associations of the past. 
Some of the most impressive beauty of 
the turkey you can see when you close 
your eyes, but you must keep them 
wide open for the peacock. 
I think that Mr. A. H. Beardsley of 
the “Photo-Era Magazine” must have 
been a farmer boy ; but however that 
may be, he is a good photographer and 
an accomplished judge of the fine points 
in a high-class photograph. I com- 
mend his judgment since he has put 
the accompanying cut of the turkey on 
the front cover of his magazine, 
“Photo-Era,” and I have equal admira- 
tion for this unusual cut of the com- 
monplace turkey by a remarkably 
skilled photographer with a rather 
commonplace name — Mr. John Smith. 
I liked it so well that I have borrowed 
it to give the reader pleasure. 
But speaking of turkeys that reminds 
me. Of all the astonishing, I felt al- 
most like saying incredible, stories of 
the turkey is that by the skilled biolo- 
gist and master of the English lan- 
guage, Mr. Dallas Lore Sharp. In his 
book, “Winter,” published by Hough- 
ton Mifflin Company, his story called 
“The Turkey Drive,” for novelty, in- 
terest, clear-cut expression and know’ 
edge of the bird, should take the first 
premium. It is as pleasing as the au- 
thor’s well-known classic, “Turtle 
Eggs to Agassiz.” Two college boys 
in New Brunswick, to earn a little 
money to help in their college ex- 
penses, went among the farmers and 
bought some five hundred turkeys, and 
started to drive them several days’ 
journey. They were not allowed to 
roost at night. They must keep a- 
going. They must not fly to the trees 
or they could never get started again 
in the morning. But on the the third 
day came a snowstorm and the tur- 
keys insisted upon roosting on a rail- 
road track. I quote from the author : 
“They were going to roost upon the 
track ! The railroad bank shelved 
down to the woods on each side, and 
along its whitened peak lay the two 
black rails like ridge-poles along the 
length of a long roof. In the thick 
half-light of the whirling snow, the 
turkeys seemed suddenly to find them- 
selves at home, and as close together 
as they could crowd, with their breasts 
all to the storm, they arranged them- 
selves in two long lines upon the steel 
rails. 
“And nothing could move them ! As 
fast as one was tossed down the bank, 
up he came. Starting down the lines, 
the boys pushed and shoved to clear 
the track ; but the lines re-formed be- 
hind them quickly, evenly, and almost 
without a sound. As well try to sweep 
back the waves of the sea ! They 
worked together to collect a small band 
of the birds and drive them into the 
edge of the woods ; but every time the 
band dwindled to a single turkey that 
dodged between their legs toward its 
place on the roost. The two boys could 
have kept two turkeys off the rails, but 
not five hundred.” 
Then follow excitable features. They 
might serve as a thriller movie. The 
fast express that the boys supposed 
the approaching train to be proved to 
be a freight. It was somewhat of a 
task to throw five hundred turkeys 
