WILD TURKEY. 
81 
the Rocky Mountains; the Mandan Indians, who a few years ago 
visited the city of Washington, considered the Turkey one of the 
greatest curiosities they had seen, and prepared a skin of one, to 
carry home for exhibition. 
The Wild Turkey is not very plenty in Florida, Georgia, and 
the Carolinas; is still less frequently found in the western parts of 
Virginia and Pennsylvania; and is extremely rare, if indeed it 
exists at all, in the remaining northern and eastern parts of the 
United States: in New-England, it even appears to have been 
already destroyed one hundred and fifty years back. I am, how¬ 
ever, credibly informed, that Wild Turkeys are yet to be found in 
the mountainous districts of Sussex county, New-Jersey. The 
most eastern part of Pennsylvania now inhabited by them, appears 
to be Lancaster county; and they are often observed in the oak 
woods near Philipsburg, Clearfield county. Those occasionally 
brought to the Philadelphia and New-York markets, are chiefly 
obtained in Pennsylvania and New-Jersey. 
The Wild Turkeys do not confine themselves to any particular 
food; they eat maize, all sorts of berries, fruits, grasses, beetles; 
and even tadpoles, young frogs, and lizards, are occasionally found 
in their crops; but where the pecan nut is plenty, they prefer that 
fruit to any other nourishment: their more general predilection is, 
however, for the acorn, on which they rapidly fatten. When an 
unusually profuse crop of acorns is produced in a particular section 
of country, great numbers of Turkeys are enticed from their ordi¬ 
nary haunts in the surrounding districts. About the beginning of 
October, while the mast still remains on the trees, they assemble 
in flocks, and direct their course to the rich bottom lands. At 
this season, they are observed, in great numbers, on the Ohio and 
Mississippi. The time of this irruption is known to the Indians 
by the name of the Turkeij month. 
Tiie males, usually termed gobblers, associate in parties num¬ 
bering from ten to a hundred, and seek their food apart from the 
VOL. I.-X 
