The Wild Turkey and Its Hunting

de of the hummock or thicket, preening their feathers or wallowing in the dust. They thus pass the middle hours of the day in social harmony and restful abandon. Abou

ey will then stop suddenly in a close group, peer about, uttering low purring sounds, while having a breathing spell from the long run. Having regained their composure, the old hens will sound several clucks in rapid succession, terminating in a guttural cackle, when the whole of the flock will take wing. With a wild

r from the overflowing streams, when it spreads out widely through the standing timber of the river bottoms, affords them great comfort

a week at a given spot. There are exceptions though, for I have known positively of old gobblers who took up their abode at a certain spot and roosted, if not in the same tree, in the same clump of trees, night after night and year after year with the persistent regularity of the peacock, which will roost on the same limb of a tree for ten or twenty years if undisturbed. When an old gobbler does take to this hermitlike custom, he is the most difficult bird to bag in the world. His life seems immune from attacks of any nature, and he seems to know the tactics of every hunter in the vicinity of his range. He keeps aloof from any old logs or stumps where an enemy may lurk, and never gobbles until daylight, so that he can take in every inch of his surroun

e gobblers, with not a hen around. If in the gobbling season, and the males are gobbling, in less than half an hour the hens would be among them, but if not in the gobbling season the former may not meet the latter again for a month, as in the spring the sexes have no more attraction for each other than were they birds of entirely different groups. Except in the spring you may flush and

ey will go a long way to ro

on the young buds and tender leaves. I have repeatedly noticed this in the Tombigbee swamps in the State of Alabama. Those that do not go to the hills and pine forests will hug the margin of the overflow until the waters subside, when they

m two to a dozen. Thus they remain all through the summer, autumn and winter, acting the r?le of old bachelors or widowers, and never separating unless disturb

dines in the bottoms, but a good pin oak crop of acorns, such as the turkeys like. In the higher woods there was

red no broods will associate all winter with the young broods and their mothers. I have often observed that these old patriarchs, as a rule, never associate with any other age or sex of turkeys. In summer you will often see an old gobbler or two with a flock of hens early in the morning; but see the same flock three hours later and he is not with them. In the early morning hours of spring, while there is a general gobbling and strutting parade, all ages and sexes mingle in the exuberance of the season and hour; but when this outburst of frolic and revelry is over, the different bands return to the sterner business of the day, that of searching for food. The old gobblers remain gobbling, strutting, gyrating round, picking at and teasing each other, or strumming now and then with the tip of wings, until a riot is precipitated and a fight ensues, in which two become engaged, while the more peaceful or timid quickly leave the vicinity. The gladiators then begin a

an expert turkey hunte

m as lord of a certain range, which no other gob

have formed an inseparable alliance and remained together staunch friends for years. Hens are seldom seen in their company and they are extremely difficult to call. I hunted one such brace three years, killing many other gob

s side as many of the females within hearing of his voice as will come to him. Several gobblers can be heard in the morning gobbling within a radius of a few hun

; except the mogul himself. His bigotry and vanity render him most indifferent to the seductive coquetry of the females, much less to human imitators. Be

h, ending the last of May, embracing about three months, though the time depends much on the thermal conditi