256 
DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
yet they always retained some of their original propensities, roosting by 
themselves, and higher than the tame birds, generally on the top of 
some tree, or on the house. They were also more readily alarmed. On 
the approach of a dog they would fly off, and seek safety in the woods. 
On an occasion of this kind, one of them flew across the Susquehanna, 
and the owner was apprehensive of losing it. In order to recover it, he 
sent a boy with a tame turkey, which was released at the place where 
the fugitive had alighted. This plan was successful. They soon joined 
company, and the tame bird induced his companion to return home. 
Mr. Bloom found occasion to remark that the wild turkey will thrive 
more and keep in better condition than the tame turkey, on the same 
quantity of food. 
The native country of the wild turkey extends from the northwestern 
territory of the United States to the Isthmus of Panama, south of which 
it is not to be found, notwithstanding the statements of authors, who 
have mistaken the curassow for it. In Canada, and the now densely- 
peopled parts of the United States, wild turkeys were formerly very 
abundant, but, like the Indian buffalo, they have been compelled to 
yield to the destructive ingenuity of the white settlers, often wantonly 
exercised, and seek refuge in the remotest parts of the interior. Although 
they relinquish their native soil with slow and reluctant steps, yet such 
is the rapidity with which settlements are extended, and condensed over 
the surface of this country, that we may anticipate a day, at no distant 
period, when the hunter will seek the wild turkey in vain. 
The wooded part of Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama ; 
the unsettled portions of the states of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and 
Illinois ; the vast expanse of territory northwest of these states, on the 
Mississippi and Missouri, as far as the forests extend, are more supplied 
than any other parts of the Union with this valuable game, which forms 
an important part of the subsistence of the hunter and traveler in the 
wilderness. It is not probable that the range of this bird extends to 
or beyond the Rocky Mountains. The Mandan Indians, who a few 
years ago visited the city of Washington, considered the turkey one of 
the greatest curiosities they had seen, and prepared a skin of one to 
carry home for exhibition. 
In Florida, Georgia, and the Caroliuas, the wild turkey is not common, 
and still less so in the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania. 
Some, however, are said to exist in the mountainous districts of Sussex 
county, New Jersey. 
The wild turkey is irregularly migratory, as well as irregularly grega- 
rious. Whenever the forest fruits (or mast) of one portion of the country 
greatly exceed those of another, thither are the turkeys insensibly led, 
by gradually meeting in their haunts with more fruit, the nearer they 
advance toward the place in which it is most plentiful. Thus, in an 
irregular manner, flock follows flock, until some districts are deserted, 
while others are crowded with an influx of arrivals. “About the 
beginning of October,” says Audubon, “ when scarcely any of the seeds 
and fruits have fallen from the trees, these birds assemble in flocks, and 
gradually move toward the rich bottom-lands of the Ohio and Mississippi. 
The males, or, as they are more commonly called, the gobblers, associate 
