TURKEYS: MERRIAM TURKEY 
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Food. —In winter' pinyon nuts, acorns, and juniper berries; in summer flower 
buds, grass and other seeds, wild oats, wild strawberries, manzanita berries, rose 
haws, fruit of wild mulberry and prickly pear, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, 
caterpillars, ants, and other insects. In New Mexico “the crop of a Merriam 
Turkey killed February 10 on Haul Creek contained 76 juniper berries, 25 pinyon 
Map 8. Merriam Turkey 
Shaded areas show former range. Outlined areas show 1926 range, from 
Ligon’s game survey 
nuts, 6 acorns, 30 soft worms an inch long, grass blades and some rock. The crop 
of a gobbler, weighing about 30 pounds and shot March 25 out of a flock of 50 in 
the Black Mountains, contained 30 pinyon nuts and 215 juniper berries” (Ligon). 
The stomach of a specimen collected near the southern end of the range contained 
fully a half pint of the fruiting panicles of grass (Muhlenbergia), a few seeds of 
Bromus, and some grass blades comprising 55 per cent; pinyon pine and other pine 
seeds, 45 per cent. In some localities considerate ranchmen plant small patches 
of oats for turkey food (Ligon, 1927). 
