LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
57 
I succeeded in pulling him olF. Since then, scarce 
a day elapses without other polite attentions of the 
same kind, hut I am informed this is nothing to 
what I may expect in a month or two, when the 
seed-ticks ” come about. 
Look into the'woods, in this direction : — yonder 
are two wild Turkeys {Meleagrts gallopavo), the 
finest bird that America has produced. Let us go 
nearer ; we shall easily find the path again. They 
are both hens and have young, their alarm and 
anxiety for which cause them to make that loud 
calling, and to run round and round as if bereft of 
their senses. They are not eaten at this season, 
being very poor: no doubt if we could examine 
those, we should find them little but bones and 
feathers, and even of the latter no great quantity, 
the breast and belly being totally bare from sitting. 
If you will come a little way further into the forest, 
I will show you a very curious contrivance for 
taking turkeys. It is called a pen, and it is a com- 
mon and very successful trap : this one was set up, 
‘‘fixed,” by some of my schoolboys in the winter, 
but it is not baited in summer, when the bird is not 
in season. It consists of an inclosure about ten 
feet square, made with rails resting on each other 
at the corners, covered in also by rails. A hole or 
passage is dug, leading from some distance outside 
to the midst of the pen, under the bottom rail, the 
part next the rails, within the pen, being covered 
with a board, or with sticks. Corn is then scat- 
tered around the hole and within the pen : the 
turkeys follow the corn, eating as thej^ go, until 
they get into the pen ; when, finding themselves 
inclosed, they endeavour to get out, running round 
and round, looking for an opening above, but are 
