48 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. 
of two birds 'collected at Siiinmitville, Colo., in January, 1891, at an 
altitude of 13,000 feet, were found to contain bud twi<rs from one- 
tliird to one-half inch long, but the kind of bush from which they 
came could not l)e determined. Doctor Cones, quotin^r T. M. Trippe, 
states that the food of this bird is insects, leguminous flowers, and 
the buds and leaves of pines and firs." According to Major Uendire, 
the flowers and leaves of marsh marigold {Caltha leptosepaUi) and 
the leaf buds and catkins of the dwarf birch {Betrda glandidom) are 
eaten. ^ Dr. A. K. Fisher examined the stomachs of two downy 
chicks collected on Mount Rainier, Washington, and found beetles 
and flowers of heather (Cassiope mertensiatia) and those of a small 
blueberry. 
THE WILD TURKEY. 
(Meleagris gaUopavo.) c 
The wild turkey, our biggest game bird, was formerly abundant 
over a wide area. It has been exterminated throughout much of its 
former range, and unless radical measures are taken it will become 
extinct in a few years. In early colonial days it was numerous in 
Massachusetts, coming about the houses of the settlers in large 
flocks. It is now totalh^ extinct in Xew England. It is hard to 
realize that at the beginning of the nineteenth century turkeys were 
so abundant that they sold for G cents apiece, though the largest 
ones, weighing from 25 to 30 pounds, sometimes brought a quarter of 
a dollar. A big wild turkey nowadays would not long go begging 
at $5. It is their value as food that has made it worth while to 
hunt turkeys to the very point of extermination. So-called sports- 
men go out in the late summer ostensibly to shoot squirrels, but really 
to pot turkeys on the roost. Another practice is to lie in ambush and 
lure the game by imitating the call note of the hen in spring. The 
writer has personal knowledge of such methods of hunting in Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, and they' are largely responsible for the exter- 
mination now innninent. Trapping turkeys in pens — a very simple 
matter — has also accelerated the destruction of the species. 
William Brewster found the turkey breeding in North Carolina 
among the conifers at 5,000 feet altitude, and also in the hardwoods 
at low altitudes. Edward A. Preble, of the Biological Survey, dis- 
a Birds of the Northwest, p. 427, 1874. 
b Life Hist. X. A. Birds. [1], pp. 8.5-SO, 1802. 
f The typical MclcagriH (jaUoimvo is restricted to Mexico; but four geographic 
rnces have bei'ii recognized within the I'nited States. Tliese are the wild tur- 
key of the Eastern States and the Mississippi Valley (Meleagris gaUopavo siJ- 
vefitris) ; tlie Florida turkey (.1/, //. o.seeola) ; the Uio Grande turkey (M. g. 
intermedia) ; and the Merriani turkey of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and 
the table-land of northern Mexico (J/, g. merriami). 
