The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-02-26
WILD TURKEYS
GROWING SCARCE

''They are the hardest things in tn
line of a game bird to bring down.
''They can run like deer and duel
out of sight like a jack rabbit.
81 ought to know, because I've chas
ed them for days at a time, but I never
| did get as close to a real live turkey
| before"
| The speaker. says the Boston Herald
| was a visitor at the Sportsmen's Show
| last night, who went into ecstacies over
| the wild turkeys. which form a small
portion of Homer Davenport's bird ex-
hibit. In a very few minutes large
| number of people had the turkey fever
| and every one wanted to know all
| about them.
| 1t is hard to realize that at the be-
| ginning of the nineteenth century wild
| turkeys were so abundant that they
| sold for six cents apiece, although the
| larger ones, weighing from twenty-five
| to thirty pounds, sometimes brought
a quarter of dollar. A big wild tur-
key nowadays would not long go beg
ging at SIS.
1t is their value as food that has
made it worth while to hunt turkeys
to the very point of determination. So
summer, ostensibly to shoot squirrels,
but really to pot turkeys on the roost.
Another practice is to lie in ambush
and to lure the game by initiating the
call note of the hen in spring. Trap
ping turkeys in pens, very simple
matter, has also accelerated the de-
struction of the species.
The wild turkey consumes insects,
pests and seeds of weeds but now is
nowhere abundant enough to have
much effect on agriculture. The bio
logical survey has examined in all six
teen stomaches of wild turkeys. These
We're collected during February, March,
July, September November and De-
cember. These stomaches contained
1887 per cent, of animal matter and
Sab per cent, of vegetable matter.
The animal matter consisted of spid-
ers, snails, myriapods, grasshoppers,
beetles, flies, caterpillars and other in
sects. The wild turkey is very fond of
grasshoppers and crickets. During the
Nebraska invasion of Rocky Mountain
locusts Prof. Aughey examined the
contents of the stomaches and crops Of
six wild turkeys, and every one was
found to have eaten locusts. The wild
turkey has been known also to feed on
the cottonworm, the leafhoppers and
the leaf eating beetles
One turkey was found to have made
a very respectable meal. Ten per cent.
Of it's food was animal matter and 80
per cent. vegetable. The animal part |
consisted of one harvest spider, one
one ichneumon fly one |
and three katydids. The
vegetable food was wild black cherries. |
berries of Towering dogwood !
md sour gum two chestnuts, twenty
i've whole corns, a few alder catkins,
eeds Of jewel weed and 500 seeds Of
lex trefoil.
Another turkey, also shot in Deem
Der, had eaten a ground beetle. an
chneumon fly. two wheel bugs, ten
Fellow Jackets. a meadow grasshop-
'er, seventy-f1ve red-legged grasshop-
,ers, a few sour gum berries, some {
line seeds with a few pine needles.
taken accidentally. several
corns, a quarter of a cupful of wheat {
nd little corn. It will thus be seen
hat the wild turkey has wonderful
igestive apparatus, as it can eat most
nything. It is only in comparatively
acent times, however, that the econo-
7ic value of turkeys as insect de-
croyers has been recognized.
The result of recent Investigations Z
Mould lead 10 a wider knowledge of
&c essential part these birds play in :
,ecking the increase of noxious weeds G
nd insects and the Importance of pre- !
CRYING the turkeys and Of increasing
1eir numbers.