The Wild Turkey and Its Hunting. Edward Avery McIlhenny

but there are many localities in the South and West, especially in the Gulf-bordering states, where they are still plentiful, and with any sort of protection will remain so. Some of these localities are so situated that they will for generations remain primeval forests, giving ample shelter and food to the turkey.

      A novice might think it an easy matter to find turkeys after seeing their tracks along the banks of streams or roads, or in the open field, where they lingered the day before. But these birds are not likely to be in the same place the following day; they will probably be some miles away on a leafy ridge, scratching up the dry leaves and mould in quest of insects and acorns, or in some cornfield gleaning the scattered grain; or perhaps they might be lingering on the banks of some small stream in a dense swamp, gathering snails or small crustacea and water-loving insects.

      To be successful in turkey hunting you must learn to rise early in the morning, ere there is a suspicion of daylight. At such a time the air is chilly, perhaps it looks like rain, and on awakening you are likely to yawn, stretch, and look at the time. Unless you possess the ardor of a sportsman it is not pleasant to rise from a comfortable bed at this hour and go forth into the chill morning air that threatens to freeze the marrow in your bones. But it is essential that you rise before light, and if you are a born turkey hunter you will soon forget the discomforts. It has been my custom, when intending to go turkey hunting, never to hesitate a moment, but, on awakening in the morning, bound out of bed at once and dress as soon as possible. It has also been my custom to calculate the distance I am to go, so as to reach the turkey range by the time or a little before day breaks. I have frequently risen at one or two o'clock in the morning and ridden twelve miles or more before daybreak for the chance to kill an old gobbler.

      Early morning from the break of day until nine o'clock is the very best time during the whole day to get turkeys; but the half hour after daybreak is really worth all the rest of the day; this is the time when everything chimes with the new-born day; all life is on the move; diurnal tribes awakening from night's repose are coming into action, while nocturnal creatures are seeking their retreats. Hence at this hour there is a conglomeration of animal life and a babel of mingled sounds not heard at any other time of day. This is the time to be in the depths of the forest in quest of the wild turkey, and one should be near their roosting place if possible, quietly listening and watching every sound and motion. If in the autumn or winter you are near such a place, you are likely to hear, as day breaks, the awakening cluck at long intervals; then will follow the long, gentle, quavering call or yelp of the mother hen, arousing her sleeping brood and making known to them that the time has arrived for leaving their roosts. If in the early spring, you will listen for the salutation of the old gobbler.

CHAPTER II

       RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME

       Table of Contents

      When America was discovered the wild turkey inhabited the wooded portion of the entire country, from the southern provinces of Canada and southern Maine, south to southern Mexico, and from Arizona, Kansas, and Nebraska, east to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. As the turkey is not a migratory bird in the sense that migration is usually interpreted, and while the range of the species is one of great extent, as might be expected, owing to the operation of the usual causes, a number of subspecies have resulted. At the present time, ornithologists recognize four of these as occurring within the limits of the United States, as set forth in Chapter IV beyond.

      In countries thickly settled, as in the one where I now write, there is a great variety of wild turkeys scattered about in the woods of the small creeks and hills. Many hybrid wild turkeys are killed here every year. The cause of this is: every old gobbler that dares to open its mouth to gobble in the spring is within the hearing of farmers, negroes, and others, and is a marked bird. It is given no rest until it is killed; hence there are few or no wild turkeys to take care of the hens, which then visit the domestic gobbler about the farm-yards. Hence this crossing with the wild one is responsible for a great variety of plumages.

      I once saw a flock of hybrids while hunting squirrels in Pelahatchie swamp, Mississippi, as I sat at the root of a tree eating lunch, about one o'clock, with gun across my lap, as I never wish to be caught out of reach of my gun. Suddenly I heard a noise in the leaves, and on looking in that direction I saw a considerable flock of turkeys coming directly toward me in a lively manner, eagerly searching for food. The moment these birds came in sight I saw they had white tips to their tails, but they had the form and action of the wild turkey, and it at once occurred to me that they were a lot of mixed breeds, half wild, half tame, with the freedom of the former. I noticed also among them one that was nearly white and one old gobbler that was a pure wild turkey; but it was too far off to shoot him. Dropping the lunch and grasping the gun was but the work of a second; then the birds came round the end of the log and began scratching under a beech tree for nuts. Seeing two gobblers put their heads together at about forty yards from me, I fired, killing both. The flock flew and ran in all directions. One hen passed within twenty paces of me and I killed it with the second barrel. A closer examination of the dead birds convinced me that there had been a cross between the wild and the tame turkeys. The skin on their necks and heads was as yellow as an orange, or more of a buckskin, buff color, while the caruncles on the neck were tinged with vermilion, giving them a most peculiar appearance; all three of those slain had this peculiar marking, and there was not a shadow of the blue or purple of the wild turkey about their heads, while all other points, save the white-tipped feathers, indicated the wild blood.

      Shortly after the foregoing incident, while a party of gentlemen, including my brother, were hunting some five miles below the same creek, they flushed a flock of wild turkeys, scattering them; one of the party killed four of them that evening, two of which (hens) were full-blood wild ones. One of the remaining two, a fine gobbler, had as red a head as any tame gobbler, and the tips of the tail and rump coverts were white. The other bird (a hen) was also a half-breed. There was no buff on their heads and necks, but the purple and blue of the wild blood was apparent.

      Early the next morning my brother went to the place where the turkeys were scattered the previous afternoon, and began to call. Very soon he had a reply, and three fine gobblers came running to him, when he killed two, one with each barrel; now these were full-blood wild ones.

      I have noted that a number of wild turkeys in the Brazos bottoms are very different in some respects from the turkeys of the piney woods in the eastern section of that state. In Trinity County, Texas, I found the largest breed of wild turkeys I have found anywhere, but in the Brazos bottoms the gobblers which I found there in 1876, in great abundance, were of a smaller stature, but more chunky or bulky. Their gobble was hardly like that of a wild turkey, the sound resembling the gobble of a turkey under a barrel, a hoarse, guttural rumble, quite different in tone from the clear, loud, rolling gobble of his cousin in the Trinity country. The gobblers of the Brazos bottoms were also distinguishable by their peculiar beards. In other varieties of turkeys three inches or less of the upper end of the beard is grayish, while those of the Brazos bottoms were more bunchy and black up to the skin of the breast. There is a variety of turkeys in the San Jacinto region, in the same state, which is quite slender, dark in color, and has a beard quite thin in brush, but long and picturesque. His gobble is shrill. This section is a low plain, generally wet in the spring, partly timbered and partly open prairie. It is a great place for the turkey.

      Since the days of Audubon it has been prophesied that the wild turkey would soon become extinct. I am glad to say that the prophecies have not been realized up to the present time, even with the improved implements of destruction and great increase of hunters. There is no game that holds its own so well as the wild turkey. This is particularly true in the southern Gulf States, where are to be found heavily timbered regions, which are suited to the habits of this bird. Here shelter is afforded and an ample food supply is provided the year round. In the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and the Indian Territory the wild turkey is still to be found in reasonable abundance, and if these states will protect them by the right sort of laws, I am of the opinion that the birds will increase rapidly, despite the encroachment of civilization and the war