WILD TURKEY. 
171 
during* the season. Several turkey hens sometimes 
associate, perhaps for mutual safety, deposit their eggs 
in the same nest, and rear their broods together. Mr 
Audubon once found three females sitting on forty-two 
eggs. In such cases, the nest is constantly guarded by 
one of the parties, so that no crow, raven, nor even 
polecat, dares approach it. 
The mother will not forsake her eggs, when near 
hatching, while life remains ; she will suffer an enclo- 
sure to be made around and imprison her, rather than 
abandon her charge. Mr Audubon witnessed the 
hatching of a brood, while thus endeavouring to secure 
the young and mother. “ I have laid flat,” says he, 
“ within a very few feet, and seen her gently rise from 
the eggs, look anxiously towards them, chuck with a 
sound peculiar to the mother on such an occasion, 
remove carefully each half empty shell, and with her 
bill caress and dry the younglings, that already stand 
tottering and attempting to force their way out of the 
nest.” 
When the process of incubation is ended, and the 
mother is about to retire from the nest with her young 
brood, she shakes herself violently, picks and adjusts 
the feathers about the belly, and assumes a different 
aspect ; her eyes are alternately inclined obliquely up^ 
wards and sidewise ; she stretches forth her neck, in 
every direction, to discover birds of prey or other 
enemies ; her wings are partially spread, and she softly 
clucks to keep her tender offspring close to her side. 
They proceed slowly, and, as the hatching generally 
occurs in the afternoon, they sometimes return to pass 
the first night in the nest. While very young, the 
mother leads them to elevated dry places, as if aware 
that humidity, during the first few days of their life, 
would be very dangerous to them, they having then 
no other protection than a delicate, soft, hairy down. 
In very rainy seasons wild turkeys are scarce, because, 
when completely wetted, the young rarely survive. 
At the expiration of about two weeks, the young 
leave the ground on which they had previously reposed 
