The record-union., 1896-12-13
THE ROYAL Wild TURKEY.
Something About a National Bird Of The
United States.
A Wild rlonarch Eloquent of the
Woods and Mountains of This
Country.

Country.
The wild turkey is an American to
the very tip of his broad powerful gray
wings Among birds he is the true
aborigine, and no imaginative novelist
is needed to endCw him with pictur-
esque qualities as the Red Indians need
ed Fenimore Cooper to supply the air
of romance that surrounds them. The
man who has ever won with tireless
climbing and eternal vigilance the sight
of great bronze wild turkey gobbler in
his native mountain haunts, needs no
argument to show him that the eagle is
a pitiable and rowdy character in COM
parison to figure as the national bird of
these United States. The sturdy men
who with their axes and rifles won
America for civilization relied on the
turkey for their Thanksgiving dinners;
in many times of leanness in the wilds
of Virginia and Kentucky and New
York and Indiana the noble bird fur
nished the sinews Of war.
In those times he was to be found In
all the regions east of the Mississippi
| where heavily wooded districts gave
his splendid tribe their food of chest
nuts, wild berries, and nourishing
seeds. But the shyest Of all birds is
absolutely incompatible with civiliza-
ton, and he has retired year by year
until now only the most secret places
in the Alleghenies and the vast dismal
swamps of the Southern States give
any hope for the persevering turkey
hunter.
The wonder is that the bird still ex-
lists at ALL for ever since the white
men came all manner of nefarious
schemes have been concocted for his
destruction. Let a gang of turkeys
say ten or twelve, the adults of couple
of families, show themselves a few times
on the edge of their almost impenetra-
BILE swamp dwelling, and there will not
be wanting pot-hunters to spy on them
for months till the roost Of the big
birds is located" on some high vet
eran pine, SCARED by lightning, rails
ing its arms, Laocoon-lke, from some
little island hidden in the marsh and
thicket Then on a night when the
moon is fat and red and round, the
murderers wade through miles of mo-
rass and peer into the pine until they
dimly perceive the dusky forms
orouched on the horizontal boughs Not
until the position of every turkey is de-
termined does the massacre begin, and
then the bird nearest the ground is Sc
lected to be ruthlessly shot; after that
the one next above receives the old
muzZle-loader's charge of buckshot, and
so on to the highest. If this order be
followed, the whole flock may be shot
down; but let a wounded bird come
fiuttering down from above by one of
his poor, perking, quitting neighbors-
the lower one takes flight and the whole
flock is off in a moment.
The mountaineers may catch
glimpses now and then in their wood
chopping Of gray, disappearing wings,
and learn that a flock Is constantly
using about a certain ridge. A big pen
Of rails is built, with no opening large
enough to admit a turkey except a sin
gle hole dug under the bottom stick
of the pen; then enticing trails of corn
are laid from various parts of the
ridge and the ravines on either side,
some Of the corn trails about a half a
mile long, but all converging to this
opening under the pen; and a tempting
pile of grain lies left just inside the
trap. On some unfortunate day the
turkeys find the trails, and feed up
in the right direction, running one by
one quickly in front of each other,
picking up the grains which are
dropped a foot or so apart, until they
come to the pen.
Presently one can stand the tempta-
ton no longer, and squeezes under the
rail through the hole The sight of the
| a ring all +Lot
Is too much for the nerves of the out
| sicers, and in a few moments the whole
gang is inside. And now comes the alb
surd part of the business. When the
birds have stuffed themselves and
have turned to leave, up go the long
necks through the slips in the pen on
every side, frantic clawings and fiut-
terings shake the stout rails, but not
a single idiot Of the lot ever by any
| chance squeezes back out Of that hole
under the lowest rail- which admitted
| him.
Instead of a pen the rails may be
| led to blind, when the habits Of a
particular flock have been studied
close enough to make it worth while to
sit in ambush from daylight on and
wait for them. Thirty feet in front
of the ambuscade of artistically ar
ranged cedar boughs a narrow trough
in the ground is filed to the brim with
corn and grain. If all goes well the
birds come up on the scanty rail and
begin to eat greedily altogether at the
trough, their long necks interlaced
while they peck away for dear life.
If an old four-bore muzzle-loader.
stuffed up with about three ordinary
charges of heavy shot, is kept trained
on the trough until this thrilling mo-
ment there is good chance that a pull
Of a trigger will blow the heads off OF
a large part of the gang.
These are the ways a turkey ought
not be hunted, or rather butchered. To
hear of them one might take the wild
turkey to be an exceedingly foolish
fowl, and on these particular occa-
sions he undoubtedly is; but they are
only the startling and infrequent
lapses of a great mind Taking him
''by and large" an old turkey gobbler
is the quickest, swiftest shiftiest.
shyest and most knowing animal with
wings or without. He can run like a
greyhound, smell like a deer, see like
an eagle and fly like wild turkey. You
on your hands and knees over a noun
tain open or in moving with noiseless
footsteps, each one of which is con-
sidered with careful deliberation, and
a single sudden turn of yo11r head