WILD TURKEY. 
87 
suck one of the eggs, the parent leaves them altogether. If the 
eggs be removed, she again seeks the male and recommences 
laying, though otherwise she lays but one nest of eggs 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 enclosure 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 anx¬ 
iously 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 upwards and sideways; 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 
