258 
DOMESTIC AJtlilALS. 
varies from ten to fifteen. While the gradual addition of egg to egg is 
going on, the hen displays surprising instinctive caution. On leaving 
her charge, she is careful to cover the whole with dry leaves, so artfully 
disposed as to render it difficult, even for one who has watched her 
movements, to find the nest ; and on returning to it she varies her rout, 
scarcely ever returning to it twice by the same course. Hence it is 
mostly by accident that the nest of the hen is discovered. It not 
unfrequently happens that several hens associate together and form a 
common nest, probably for mutual aid and assistance, and rear their 
broods together. Audubon says that he once found three hens sitting 
on forty-two eggs. In such cases one of the females at least is ever 
on guard, no raven or crow then daring to invade the nest. While 
in the act of incubation, the hen is not readily driven from her nest by 
the appearance of danger. A person walking carelessly along as if taking 
no particular notice, may pass a nest within five or six paces, the female 
crouching low to avoid observation; but, as Mr. Audubon has ascertained, 
if a person make his approach in a stealthy searching manner, she 
will quit it while he is yet thirty yards distant, and assuming a stately 
gait, will move away, uttering every now and then a clucking note, 
probably hoping by this means to draw off the intruder and baffle his 
search. The same writer says that the hen seldom or never abandons 
her nest if it has been discovered by man, but that if a snake or any 
other animal has sucked any of the eggs, she leaves it altogether. Under 
such circumstances, or when the eggs have been removed, she seeks the 
male, and recommences the preparation of another nest ; but, as a rule, 
she lays only a single batch of eggs during the season. When the eggs 
are on the eve of hatching, the female will not leave her nest under any 
circumstances while life remains ; she will even allow an inclosure to be 
made around her, and thus be, as it were, imprisoned, rather than seek 
her own safety by flight. 
Before leaving the nest with her young brood, the female shakes 
herself, adjusts her plumage, and appears roused to the exigencies 
of the occasion ; she glances upward and around her, in the apprehen- 
sion of enemies, and as she moves cautiously along, keeps her brood 
close about her ; her first excursion is generally to a little distance 
only from the nest, to which she returns with her brood at night. Sub- 
sequently they wander to a greater distance, the hen leading her charge 
over dry undulating grounds, as if aware of the danger of damp and 
humid spots. Wet, indeed, is fatal to young turkeys while covered 
only with down ; hence, in very rainy seasons the brood becomes greatly 
thinned, for the young, if once completely wetted, seldom recover ; 
their vital energies sink under the abstraction of caloric during evapor- 
ation. 
At the age of a fortnight, the young birds begin to use their wings ; 
hitherto they have rested on the ground, but now they begin to roost on 
the low branch of some large tree, crowding close to each side of the 
mother, and sheltered beneath her broad wings. They now wander 
about more freely, visiting the glades and open lands bordering the 
woods, in search of wild strawberries and other fruits, grasshoppers, the 
Iarv® of ants and other insects ; and roll themselves in the sand and 
