242 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
The Wooing of the Wild Turkey. 
BY J. M. MURPHY. 
The males commence wooing as early as Febru¬ 
ary in some of the extreme Southern States; but 
March is the opening of the love season through¬ 
out the country, and April the month 
in which it reaches its highest develop¬ 
ment. The males may then be heard 
calling to the females from every direc¬ 
tion, until the woods ring with their 
loud and liquid cries, which are com¬ 
menced long ere the sun appears above 
the horizon, and continued for hours 
with the steadiest persistency. As both 
sexes roost apart at this period, the 
hens avoid answering the gobblers for 
some time, but they finally become less 
obdurate, and coyly return the call. 
When the males hear this, all within 
hearing respond promptly and vehe¬ 
mently, uttering notes similar to those 
which the domestic gobblers do when 
they hear an unusual sound. If the 
female answering the call is on the 
ground, the males fly to her and parade 
before her with all the pompous strut¬ 
ting that characterizes the family. They 
spread and erect their tails, depress their 
wings with a quivering motion and trail 
them along the ground, and draw the 
head back on the shoulders, as if to in-' 
crease their dignity and importance; 
then wheel, and march, and swell, and 
gobble, as if they were trying to outdo 
each other in airs and graces. The fe¬ 
male, however, pays little attention to 
these ceremonious parades, and demure¬ 
ly looks on while the rivals for her affec¬ 
tion try to outdo one another in playing 
the gallant and dandy. When the strut¬ 
ting and gobbling fail to win her, the 
candidates for matrimony challenge 
each other to mortal combat, and which¬ 
ever is successful in the contest walks away with 
her in the most nonchalant manner. The easy in¬ 
difference of the hen as to which she will follow 
may not be pleasing to persons imbued with 
romantic feelings, yet she is only obeying a wise 
law of nature, which decrees that only the fittest 
TURKEY-TRAP. 
should live, and in the lower animal world these 
are necessarily chosen for their physical qualities. 
The battles between the males are often waged 
with such desperate valor that more than one com¬ 
batant is sent to join the great majority, as they 
deliver very heavy blows at each other’s heads, and 
do not give up a contest until they are dead, or so 
thoroughly exhausted as to be scarcely able to move. 
When one has killed another, it is said to caress 
the dead bird in an apparently affectionate manner, 
as if it were very sorry to have been compelled to 
do such a deed, but could not help it, owing to the 
force of circumstances; yet I have seen the winner 
in a tournament in such a rage that it not only 
killed its rival, but pecked out its eyes after it was 
dead. When the victors have won their brides, 
they keep together until the latter commence lay¬ 
ing, and then separate, for the males are so jealous 
that they would destroy the 
eggs if they could, in order 
to prolong the love period, 
and the hens, knowing 
this, carefully screen them. 
The males are often follow¬ 
ed by more than one hen, 
but they are not so poly¬ 
gamous as their domestic 
congeners, as I never heard 
of a gobbler having more 
than two or three females 
under his protection. The 
adult gobblers drive the 
young males away during 
the erotic season, and will 
not even permit them to 
gobble if they can, so that 
the latter are obliged to 
keep by themselves, gen¬ 
erally in parties of from six 
to ten, unless some of the 
veterans are killed, and 
then they occupy the va¬ 
cated places of the bride¬ 
grooms, according to the 
order of their prowess. 
Some aged males may 
also be found wandering 
through the woods in par¬ 
ties of two, three, four, or 
five,but they seldom mingle 
with the flocks, owing, apparently, to the waning 
of their salacious disposition. They are exceed¬ 
ingly shy and vigilant, and so wild that they fly 
immediately from an imaginary danger created by 
their own suspicious nature. They strut and gob¬ 
ble occasionally, but not near so much as their 
younger kindred. Barren hens, which also keep 
by themselves, are almost as demonstrative in dis¬ 
playing their vocal powers, airs, and feathers as 
the old males, whereas they are exceedingly coy 
and unpretentious when fertile. This fact would 
seem to prove that ordinary animal nature is 
changed by circumstances. When the 
love season is over, the males are very 
much emaciated, so, when the hens 
leave them, they keep by themselves 
until they recover their strength, and 
then reunite in small bachelor parties;, 
but, instead of being exceedingly clam¬ 
orous, as they were in the early part of 
the mating period, they become almost 
silent. Yet they sometimes strut and 
gobble on their roosts, though, as a 
general rule, they do not, and content 
themselves with elevating and lowering 
the tail feathers, and uttering a puffing 
sound. They keep at this exercise for 
hours at a time on moonlight nights 
without rising from their perch, and 
sometimes continue it until daylight. 
When the hen is ready to lay, she 
scratches out a slight hollow in a 
thicket, a cane brake, beside a prostrate 
tree, in tall grass or weeds, or a grain 
field, and lines it rudely with grass or 
leaves, and then deposits her eggs in it. 
These, which vary in number from ten 
to twenty, are smaller and more elon¬ 
gated than those of the domestic tur¬ 
key, and are of a dull cream or a dirty- 
white color, sprinkled with brownish- 
red spots. Audubon says that several 
hens may lay their eggs in one nest, 
and hatch them and raise the broods 
together. He found three hens sitting 
on forty-two eggs in a single nest, and 
one was always present to protect them. 
If the eggs are not destroyed, only 
one brood is raised in a year; but if 
they are, the female calls loudly for a 
male, and when she is rejoined by one, both keep 
company until she is ready to commence laying 
again, when she deserts him or drives him away, as 
he has the very strongest penchant for destroying 
the eggs, in order to keep her in^his company. This 
forces her to build her nest in the most secluded 
“ CARLING” TURKEYS. 
spot she can find,and to cover it carefully with leaves 
or grass whenever she leaves it. We present pic¬ 
tures showing how wild turkeys are “called” by 
hunters to them with whistles, and how they are en¬ 
trapped. When once enticed within this trap, they 
are so confused as to be unable to find their way out.. 
