164 
MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 
and buffalo, they have been compelled to yield to tbe 
destructive ingenuity of tbe 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. 
We have neglected no means of obtaining information 
from various parts of the Union, relative to this inte- 
resting bird ; and having been assisted by the zeal and 
politeness of several individuals, who, in different 
degrees, have contributed to our stock of knowledge 
on this subject, we return them our best thanks. We 
have particular satisfaction in acknowledging the kind- 
ness of Mr John J. Audubon, from whom we have 
received a copious narrative, containing a considerable 
portion of the valuable notes collected by him, on this 
bird, during twenty years that he has been engaged in 
studying ornithology, in the only hook free from error 
and contradiction, the great book of nature. His 
observations, principally made in Kentucky and Loui- 
siana, proved the more interesting, as we had received 
no information from those states : we have, in conse- 
quence, been enabled to enrich the present article with 
several new details of the manners and habits of the 
wild turkey. 
The wooded parts of Arkansaw, 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 
abundantly supplied, than any other parts of the union, 
with this valuable game, which forms an important part 
of the subsistence of the hunter and traveller in the 
wilderness. It is not probable that the range of this 
bird extends to, or beyond, the Kocky Mountains; the 
Mandan Indians, who a few years ago visited the city 
of Washington, considered the turkey one of the greatest 
