The Wild Turkey and Its Hunting

nd crop-cavity. This curious arrangement consists of a thick mass of cellular tissue, and its purpose is to act as a reservoir to hold surplus oil or fat.

rawing on his reservoir of fat. As the gobbler begins to grow lean, his flesh becomes rank and wholly unfit for food, and one should never be killed at this time. It is a fact that the young male turkeys gobble but seldom, if at all, the first year. Neither do these young birds possess the breast sponge, or reservoir to hold fat, and consequently they are unfit to mate with the hens. The hens visit the males every day or alternate days; consequ

s no trouble about the birds thriving in a settled community, if the proper territory is set apart for their use, and proper protection given. The territory should consist of a few acres of woodland, or of so

on. It is the trapping, snaring, baiting, and killing of all old gobble

er on the left. This is the brea

spicious. He refused to come an inch nearer, and, having heard that alarm, "put," he began to make a detour in order to gain a certain heavily wooded ridge. To do this, without getting too near the spot where he heard the warning cry of his comrade, he had to go over a high rail fence, going through a part of the field just plowed up, while the plowman was there at work in his shirt sleeves, not over one hundred yards away and in full view of the gobbler. The man was moving all the time and frequently holloaing to his mules, "Whoa," "Gee," or "Haw," in such a loud voice that one could hear him a long distance. The turkey would gobble every time the plowman would holloa. He appeared to be perfectly fearless of the plowman, but was employing all his sagacity to avoid the spot where I was. I could not understand this at first, but discovered the reason a little later. The bird had reached the field and was flanking me, but I could not see it on account of the undergrowth. I rose, and by making a detour of about two hundred yards around the angle of the field, keeping well in the woods, I finally discovered the gobbler s

an are the solid primeval forests, inasmuch as they afford a great variety of summer food, such as green, tender herbage, berries of many kind, grasshoppers by the million, and other insects in which the turkeys delight. Such a country also affords good nesting retreats, with brier-patches