THE TURKEY 
135 
frequently alarmed, are wary and cunning. Some 
of these will answer to the call without advancing 
a step, and thus defeat the speculations of the hun- 
ter, who must avoid making any movement, inasmuch 
as a single glance of a turkey may defeat his hopes 
of decoying them. By imitating the cry of the bar- 
red owl (Strix nebulosa ), the hunter discovers many 
on their roosts, as they will reply by a gobble to 
every repetition of this sound, and can thus be ap- 
proached with certainty about daylight, and easily 
killed. 
“ Wild turkeys are very tenacious of their feeding 
grounds, as well as of the trees on which they have 
once roosted. Flocks have been known to resort to 
one spot for a succession of years, and to return af- 
ter a distant migration in search of food. Their 
roosting place is mostly on a point of land, jutting 
into a river, where there are large trees. When they 
have collected at the signal of a repeated gobbling, 
they silently proceed towards their nocturnal abodes, 
and perch near each other : from the number some- 
times congregated in one place, it would seem to be 
the common rendezvous of the whole neighbourhood. 
But no position, however secluded or difficult of ac- 
cess, can secure them from the attacks of the artful 
and vigilant hunter, who, when they are all quietly 
perched for the night, takes a stand previously chosen 
by daylight, and, when the rising moon enables him 
to take sure aim, shoots them down at leisure, and 
by carefully singling out those on the lower branches 
