Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1898-02-18
WIT OF THE WOODS"
SUCH is THE DARKY'S SoBRloUET
FOR THE WILD TURKEY.

Cock FeiEns Lameness and the Young
Ones Pretend to BE Dead,
Indians call the wild turkey the wit
OF the woods" 1t is the most difficult
OF game to approach. The most scien-
tific method of killing it is by calling"
Initiating its cry. This is most eff
cacious in the spring, when the gobbler
call to the hens necessarily in the early
morning and at intervals all through
the day. The sound may be either a
love note or a challenge to a male. In
either case II we'll done by the hunter
1t will prove effective In bringing the
bird near to its hidden foe. The best
turkey call is made of the wing bone.
Sometimes it consists only OF q bit of
slate and a smoothed twig. The twig
when drawn across the slate gives a
wonderful imitation of the birds
"cheep." To call successfully requires
long practice. Some men become so
expert that they need only a broad
leaf held between the thumbs and ap-
piled to the lips. The challenge call"
is made in this way.
The gobbler tries hard to prevent the
hen nesting. He wants all of her time
and attention. He must have an au-
dience for his strutting. After many
attempts to escape and more than one
beating she will suddenly go violently
lame, with a broken wing and a queer
leg This is a favorite trick of gall
linaceous females. The quail does it
often to lure marauders from her
young. The gobbler has no use at all
for lame wife. After prancing
around her for little while and saw
agely striking her with his wing, he
HES himself away into deepest woods,
heart whole and happy.
His patient spouse then makes her
nest in peace. Her foes are active
and she needs all of her wonderful
power Of secretiveness. Crows and
snakes are fond of her eggs. The
crow, if he discovers the nest, will wait
until the mother vacates it in search
OF water and food and then carry
away the eggs one at a time. While
nesting the hens many times fall vic
lynxes or coyotes. The brood when
Matched must be guarded first of all
from the parent gobbler. If he finds it
he will decapitate the chicks one after
another with his strong beak. This
is jealousy. Caught in an open space
by a lowering hawk the chicks, at the
sound of a peculiar cluck, will stretch
themselves upon the ground as if dead
while the mother fees to the under
growth. The hawk will not eat flesh
that he thinks is carrion. At a sig
nal from the hidden mother the little
ones rise and scamper to her. The
hawk is then out of sight.
Some of the things a wild turkey
does smack of the reasoning faculty.
For instance, a hen will never tread
upon the same ground in approaching
her nest. She fears to make a path.
The ability of the birds to discover
danger can hardly be due wholly to
sight, phenomenal as it is. Possibly
they have sixth sense. A turkey will
detect the movement of a finger 100
yards away. Perfect stiffness is the
hunters only chance. Some of them
declare that they are afraid to wink
one eyelash. AS a table bird the wild
turkey is much superior to its domes-
ticated brother especially when baked
in the ground and steamed all night.
in its own royal juices.
Largest, most beautiful and wariest
of our feathered game, he is not, like
the quail, a bird of civilization. In
all of the northern and eastern states
that were once his home he is beaom-
ing scarcer and more scarce. He
must have vast stretches of primeval
woods for his habitat When the
trees are felled he dies or goes away
Beaten back, as the Indian was beaten
back by the advancing waves of white
men, he has retreated further and fur
Their to the south or west. He is still
plentiful in some portions of the Pacific
slope, but much of that land is too
bare to suit him. The turkey is not
averse to mountains, but prefers the
plains.
Southern negroes shoot wild turkeys
from V-shaped blinds. The point of
the V is toward a trench dug twenty
yards away, and in this trench parched
corn has been scattered. A trail of
corn leads to it, When the flock finds
it the heads of the birds become inter-
laced in their greed, and a single shot
sometimes results in the death of a
dozen of them. This is not tolerated
in Texas. There no man is consid-
cred a sportsman who shoots a turkey
with anything other than a rifle. The
log trap is another method of capture.
Singularly enough. no member of the
gallinaceous family. except the tame
chicken, will look down in an attempt
to escape from an Enclosure. The
turkeys are "tolled" inside of the pen
by means of corn. They enter through
a passageway cut in the ground under
the bottom log. Finding themselves
imprisoned, they rush madly round and
round until exhausted lookinp aIwovo