Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1906-03-15
WILD TURKEYS GROWING SCARCE

The Birds, ~ Left Alone, Would Check In
crease OF Noxious Weeds and Insects.
"They are the hardest things in the
line Of game bird 10 bring down.
They can run like a deer and duck
out Of sight like a jaok rabbit.
o. ought to know, because I've
chased them for days at a time, but 1
never did get as close to a real live
turkey before.
The speaker, says the Boston Herald,
was q visitor at the Sportamen q Show
last night, who went into ecstacies
over the wild turkeys, which form
small portion Of Homer Davenport
bird exhibit. 10 very few minutes
a large number Of people had the tur-
key fever and everyone wanted TO
know all about them.
Ii is hard to realize that at the be-
ginning of the Nineteenth Century
wild turkeys we're 80 abundant that
they sold for six cents apiece, although
the larger ones, weighing from - TO
80 pounds, sometimes brought a quar-
ter OF d dollar. big wild turkey
nowadays would not long go begging
at g..
Ii Is their value as food that has
made it worth while TO hunt turkeys
/ to the very point Of determination.
/ So-called sportsmen 90 out in tho late
summer, ostensibly TO shoot squirrels,
but really to pot turkeys on the roost.
Another practice IS 10 lie IN ambush
and TO lure tho game by initiating the
call note Of the hen IN spring. Trap
ping turkeys in pens, a very simple
matter, has also accelerated the de-
struotion of the species.
] Nrta
nests AMI seeds Of weeds. but now is
nowhere abundant enough to have
much effect on agriculture. The bio
logical survey has examined in all 10
stomachs of wild turkeys. These we're
collected during February, March,
July, September, November and De-
cemner. These atumaohs contained
1857 per cent of animal matter and
"a. 43 per cent of vegetable matter.
The animal matter consisted OF
spiders, snails, mylapods, Rrasshop-
peIa, beetles, flies, caterpillars and
other Insects. The wild turkey is very
foni OF grasshoppeTs and cfickots.
DuriuR tho Nebraska invasion oi
Roogy Mountain locusts Prof Anghey
examined the contents of the atomacha
and crops OF six wild tuTkeys, and
eyery one was found to have eaten
locusts. The wild turkey has been
known also to feed on the cotton worm,
the leaf hoppers and the leat-eating
beetles.
One turkey was found to have made
a very respectable meal. len per cent
of it's food was animal matter and Il
per cent vegetable. 1he animal pari
consisted OF one harvest spider, one
ceutinede, one iohueUmon fif, one
prasshopper and three katydios. Ih'
vegetable food was wild black cherries
qtapes. berries Of towering dogwooC
and sour gum, two chestnuts, - who'll
aoorns, a few alder oatkins, seeds o
level weed aud 500 seeds of tick tire
ioil.
Another turkey, also shot in Deoem
Der, had eaten a ground beetle, 81
iohneumon fly, two wheel bugs, u
! yellow Jackets, a meadow grasshoruer
15 red legged grasshoppers, few sour
/ gum berries, some pine seeds with
! few Zine needles, probably taken acci
dentallyl, several acorns, a quarter o
. .oupful of wheat ana a little corn
: II will thus be seen that the wild tuT
kew has a wonderful digestive appa
ratus, as ii oan eat most anything. /
is only in comparatively recent times
2 however, that the economic value q
! turkeys as insect destroyers has bee
= recognized.
The results Of recent Investigation
should lead to q wider knoHledge {
e the essential part these birds play }
2 checking ths increase Of noxious weed
d and insects and ths importance Of pre-
Q serving the turkeys and Of incteasin
their numbers.