450 
[March 19, 1910- 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
flocks sometimes pass over the valley from the 
Colorado River to Salton Sea or between the 
sea and the gulf, but as they do not follow the 
water courses and usually fly high, the gunner 
seldom gets a shot at them. 
Large bands of sandhill cranes are seen and 
heard frequently, and a few hundred of them 
uttering their high-keyed cry can be heard when 
they are so far away as to be discerned with 
difficulty without a glass. 
Pelicans, cranes, herons, ibis, gulls and other 
waders and aquatic birds are numerous about 
Salton Sea, and snipe, plover, curlew and rail 
are plentiful along the rivers, but are seldom 
shot because gunners prefer the larger game and 
find it easy to kill all they want. 
It is interesting to note how the birds not 
molested become aware of their immunity and 
lose their fear of guns. The mudhen, for ex¬ 
ample, has learned that she is not a duck and is 
no good, and she paddles and fusses about with¬ 
in a few yards of a blind, paying no attention 
to the guns or to the fall of ducks around her. 
After firing several shots I have seen a mudhen 
swim out of the tules five yards from the boat 
and potter around busily as unconcerned as a 
barnyard fowl. 
The mudhen lives in ostentatious obscurity. 
She always reminds me of a woman’s press club 
—obvious and audible, but not to be taken seri¬ 
ously. 
The mudhen, the sandhill crane and the 
aquatic birds not classed as game will always be 
here and in increasing numbers, but the years 
of great duck flights are numbered in Imperial 
Valley. Twenty-five years ago ducks and geese 
were as numerous in the Sacramento Valley as 
they are now in this region, and it is a fact often 
cited that in those days it cost Dr. Glenn $10,000 
a year to drive them out of his wheat field in 
Colusa. Ranchers, market hunters and sports¬ 
men have reduced the flocks in the Sacramento 
marshes to countable proportions, and unless the 
game laws shall be improved and observed, the 
marketing of game forbidden and the bag limit 
reduced to some reasonable number—fifteen is 
enough for a sportsman—submarine shooting in 
the desert will not last indefinitely. 
Speak for the Glacier National Park. 
Write to the Hon. C. N. Pray, House of Rep¬ 
resentatives, Washington, D. C., and ask him to 
do everything in his power to push forward the 
bill to establish the Glacier National Park which 
has passed the Senate and is now before the 
House of Representatives. Write also to the 
Congressman from your district and try to en¬ 
list his interest in this bill and to secure his vote 
for it. 
One of the most interesting and successful ex¬ 
periments in the domestication of a native game 
bird, which has been made in this country, was 
undertaken on a plantation near Farmville, Va., 
some years ago by Prof. Robert Lee Blanton. 
The subject of this experiment was the Virginia 
wild turkey. 
This effort has since passed the experimental 
stage and has plainly demonstrated not only that 
the turkey may be successfully domesticated, but 
that the process is surprisingly easy considering 
the supposed natural shyness of the bird, and 
has great commercial possibilities. 
Prof. Blanton’s venture was the result of an 
accidental discovery and a sudden impulse. Dur¬ 
ing a vacation time tramp through the woods on 
his own farm with an old bird dog for company, 
he was curiously watching the dog trail. Believ¬ 
ing that he was following quail the dog was 
called off, but before he could be brought to 
heel he flushed a magnificent hen turkey which 
fluttered away, apparently with a broken wing. 
Recognizing the maternal ruse, Prof. Blanton 
let the dog follow the useless chase, while he 
searched the grass and brush for the young birds 
which he knew were hidden somewhere about. 
This proved difficult and at first fruitless. So 
well were they concealed that although he had 
carefully marked the spot where the mother bird 
rose it was only when he had called the dog and 
brought him to point that he was successful, and 
by careful groping almost under the dog’s nose, 
picked up five tiny turkeys, only a few days old. 
Without any definite plan in mind and acting 
on a sudden impulse, he carried his find home, 
deciding to see if it were possible to rear them 
in captivity and to study their habits. 
The farm turkeys had been turned out with 
young that day, and when they returned at night 
the five little strangers were put in a box with 
a domestic hen turkey whose brood was small 
and were promptly adopted into the family. 
From this moment Prof. Blanton, always an 
enthusiastic student of wild life, became a turkey 
specialist. 
It was only at night that the wild birds were 
left with their foster mother, who ranged with 
her own brood during the day. They were kept 
confined during the day and carefully watched, 
a precaution which was probably needless, and 
which was abandoned in three days or as soon 
as they had become thoroughly accustomed to 
their new surroundings and life. While in con¬ 
finement they were fed every two hours. 
The first stage in the process of domestication 
was surprisingly rapid. When the wild turkey 
chicks were released from confinement at the 
end of three days, they at once joined the flock 
of farm turkeys and appeared hardly less tame 
than the other young birds. 
Prof. Blanton practically spent the whole sum¬ 
mer with his turkeys, digging worms and bring¬ 
ing berries for them, and continually calling them 
to him for food, until they came to rely on him 
for it and were thoroughly accustomed to his 
presence. 
All summer long the owner missed not one 
day in accompanying his charges to the fields, 
and when autumn came the five wild birds that 
had been just a bit behind their domestic 
brethren in friendliness came to his call as 
readily as any of the farm birds. All this time, 
although they had ranged close to the swamps 
which are the haunts of their kindred, they had 
evinced not the slightest tendency to leave their 
new home. The end of summer saw the Blanton 
farm flock of turkeys the tamest in all Virginia. 
The five birds grew and thrived, and as they 
approached maturity showed the same confidence 
in their owner that had marked their earlier life. 
Fortunately enough the little flock consisted of 
four hens and one tom turkey. 
In striking contrast to the splendid vitality of 
the wild birds were conditions among the farm 
turkeys that season. While all five of the wild 
flock reached maturity, the mortality among the 
bronze turkeys of that year’s hatch was approxi¬ 
mately 60 per cent. 
When the time came for Prof. Blanton’s de¬ 
parture for the winter he was compelled to 
choose between giving the wild birds their com¬ 
plete freedom or extending his experiment be¬ 
yond its original scope. So important had been 
the personal equation in his effort that he feared 
that with his presence withdrawn, the birds would 
quickly revert to their natural state. 
The study of these birds had proved too fasci¬ 
nating to be foregone, and his decision to con¬ 
tinue the experiment proved the real beginning 
of his wild turkey farming. 
Close observation had convinced him that al¬ 
though domestication had gone a long way, it 
would be imprudent to confine the birds closely 
or under unnatural conditions, while on the other 
hand they could be given the range of the farm 
only under his personal observation. 
An inclosure was constructed of^ five-foot 
chicken wire, fifty yards by fifteen, the wire in¬ 
closing top as well as sides. At one end a small 
tree lopped to a height of twenty-five feet was 
also inclosed in a twenty-five-foot square of wire 
fencing to form a natural roosting place. The 
space within the wire was in natural sod with 
a growth of vines and bushes, closely approxi¬ 
mating the natural habitat of the turkey. 
This work completed, a new difficulty arose. 
The wild turkey even when completely domesti¬ 
cated is the shyest of birds and at once gives a 
wide berth to anything which even remotely re¬ 
sembles a trap. They could neither be tempted 
or driven within the inclosure, but finally the en¬ 
tire flock, wild and domestic, was enticed with¬ 
in it, and after the wild birds had become some¬ 
what reconciled to the comparative confinement 
