WILD TURKEY. 
95 
violently against the earth. During these manoeuvres, he now and 
then utters a harsh, interrupted, and dissonant note, apparently 
expressive of the highest degree of rage: this cry, sounding like 
rook , oorook , oorook, will be repeated at the pleasure of any per¬ 
son who should whistle, or strike the ear of the bird by any other 
acute or unusual sound. The appearance of any red cloth is sure 
to awaken his anger, and induce him to rush fearlessly on the 
disagreeable object, exerting all his power to injure or destroy it. 
In connexion with the peculiar character of this bird, we may 
advantageously quote the sentiments of the great Franklin, who 
expressed a regret that the Turkey should not have been preferred 
to the Bald Eagle as an emblem of the United States. Certainly 
this Eagle is a tyrannical and pusillanimous bird, by no means an 
appropriate representative of a great and magnanimous nation, as 
was the Eagle chosen by the Romans. 
“ Others object to the Bald Eagle,” says Franklin, in one of his 
letters, “as looking too much like a Dindon , or Turkey. For my 
own part, I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the rep¬ 
resentative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; he 
does not get his living honestly; you may have seen him perched on 
some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the 
labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent bird has at 
length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of 
his mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him, and takes 
it from him. With all this injustice he is never in good case, but, 
like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is 
generally poor, and often very lousy. Besides, he is a rank cow¬ 
ard; the little Kingbird, not bigger than a Sparrow, attacks him 
boldly, and drives him out of the district. He is, therefore, by no 
means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of 
America, who have driven all the Kingbirds from our country; 
though exactly fit for that order of knights which the French call 
Chevaliers d’Industrie. I am, on this account, not displeased that 
