FOREST 
Vol. XCIV No. 11 

November - 1924 
A Talk on Turkeys 
Methods of Hunting and Life Habits of America’s Grandest, 
E old-timers are no doubt prone 
\X/ to dwell overmuch on the days 
of our youth and perhaps feel 
inclined to push forward the chin, 
throw back the shoulders and speak 
with some degree of assurance of suc- 
cesses afield or afloat, but in casting 
back, in memory, over the numerous 
‘tramps for the grandest of all game 
birds this Nimrod must admit to sev- 
eral blanks before there came the illu- 
minative Red-letter day. It has been 
forty years since with a gracious, 
hearty, wholesome M. D. companion 
we tramped the foothills of the Alle- 
ghenies in one of the back countries 
before sunrise of a frosty November 
day and gazed on three fine big birds 
beating their way up above the oaks 
and sailing out of the timber and 
across the valley towards the not-dis- 
tant mountains. It had been a dry fall. 
Leaves covered the ground and rattled 
under foot like castanets as we hur- 
ried along bent on quickly reaching a 
not-distant ravine where we expected 
to get some good “pheasant’—ruffed 
grouse—shooting when we had met up 
with the guide and his supposedly high 
quality dawg. It was clearly a case of 
“more haste, less speed.” The birds 
did not see us until we were within 
fairly good range. No doubt scratching 
in the deep bed of dry leaves for acorns 
and beech mast and ran off, but a short 
way before taking wing. Such oppor- 
tunities are too rare to expect a speedy 
return. Once since, over a thousand 
miles from that former locality, in an 
automobile through a grove of live 
oaks, seven beautiful turkeys moved 
slowly off to one side and stood quar- 
tering, in a row, as we checked up 
speed and drifted by while we admired 
the gorgeous glint and gleams from 
backs and breasts. 
HEADS leaned slightly forward but 
yet held high enough to see every- | 
thing within range. No undue excite- 
ment displayed, but every bird pre- 
Page 643 
Slyest Gamebird 
By OSCEOLA 
pared to speed off at a racing gait 
should the alarm appear serious. 
A long-ago turkey hunt was in mid- 
winter, in the snow, on a mountain side 
in central Pennsylvania. Unplanned, 
and by way of filling in time during a 

A band of turkeys feeding on mast 
forced delay while on a business trip— 
a hired gun and no dog, offered poor 
prospects for a successful hunt but 
what matter when hemlocks were 
weighted with snow, siskins chatter- 
ing in the sheltered nooks; a croaking 
raven floated down the mountain side 
and at rare intervals a grouse hurtled 
from under a snow bank, just often 
enough to entice the tramper farther 
up and along that rough and rugged 
slope. 
INALLY well up towards the crest, 
in the soft snow there apeared the 
wide-spread track of a solitary, long- 
rough-toed bird, a fine gobbler he must 
have been to judge by stride and toe- 
print. “Just for fun,” a stalk was es- 
sayed. No trouble to see the trail for 
rods ahead until it went over the top 
and on down the northern slope, where 
snow was deeper and crust more firm. 
Here for the greater part the bird had 
been able to stay on top while for the 
most part the hunter sank deep into 
the snow. 
FOR fully a mile the hunt proceeded 
and when it again led to the crest 
the bird was seen on set wings sailing 
out over the tree-tops towards a dis- 
tant dark bunch of timber. Not much 
of hunting that? Yes! most excellent 
hunting. The memories are as vivid 
as are those of many a later one that 
brought home more meat. The weary 
lift of foot from the soft snow, the 
glare of sun, dark tree trunks and 
green bended boughs, a brown streak 
turned to a dull thud of feathers in the 
snow, a little group of Chickadees and 
Nuthatches away up on a mountain top 
telling a happy, weary man with a gun 
what a beautiful day it was and how 
glad they were he hadn’t killed their 
friend that great big turkey gobbler, 
until the man realized to the full he 
had had a big time and had really 
made a successful stalk after all for 
he did get near enough to see a wild 
turkey, which is more than has hap- 
pened on many of the sure-enough tur- 
key hunts that same turkey stalker 
has attempted since. 
There are yet a good many of these 
birds to be found in the United States 
if one will search the secret archives 
closely. They are most abundant in 
the South and southwest sections in 
these days, north of the Mexican border. 
SouTH of that line they are said to 
be far more numerous in many sec- 
tions, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Texas and Arizona would seem to be 
the present centres of abundance of 
this most wonderful of game birds that 
once ranged from Maine to the Rocky 
Contents Copyrighted by Forest and Stream Pub. Co, 
