University of Virginia Library

WILD TURKEY HUNTING.

Originally, the wild turkey was found scattered
throughout the whole of our continent, its habits only
differing, where the peculiarity of the seasons compelled
it to provide against excessive cold or heat. In the
“clearing,” it only lives in its excellent and degenerated
descendant of the farm-yard, but in the vast prairies and
forests of the “far west,” this bird is still abundant,
and makes an important addition to the fare of wild life.

It is comparatively common on the “frontiers,” but
every passing year lessens its numbers; and as their disappearance
always denotes their death, their extermination
is progressive and certain.

In Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, and other
southern states, there are fastnesses, in which they will
find support and protection for a long time to come.
The swamps and lowlands that offer no present inducement

to “the settler,” will shelter them from the rifle;
and in the rich productions of the soil, they find a superabundance
of food.

The same obscurity, however, that protects them,
leaves the hole of the wildcat in peace; and this bitter
enemy of the turkey, wars upon it, and makes its life one
of cunning and care. Nor, is its finely-flavored meat unappreciated
by other destroyers, as the fox often makes
the turkey an evening meal, while the weasel contents
itself with the little chicks. The nest, however, may
have been made, and the young birds may have in peace
broken the shell, and frightened at their own piping
notes, hidden instinctively away, when the Mississippi
will rise, bearing upon its surface the waters of a thousand
floods, swell within its narrow banks, and overflow
the lowlands. The young bird, unable to fly, and too
delicate to resist the influence of the wet, sickens and
dies.

Upon the dryness of the season, therefore, the turkey-hunter
builds his hopes of the plentifulness of the
game.

Independent of the pernicious influence of unfavorable
seasons, or the devastation of the wild turkey by
destructive animals, their numbers are also annually
lessened by the skill of the pioneer and backwoodsman,
and in but comparatively a few more years the bird must
have, as a denizen of our border settlements, only a traditionary
existence; for the turkey is not migratory in

its habits, and its absence from any of its accustomed
haunts, is indicative of its total extermination from the
place where it was once familiar.

At present, the traveller in the “far west,” while
wending his solitary way through the trackless forests,
sometims very unexpectedly meets a drove of turkeys
in his pathway, and when his imagination suddenly
warms with the thought that he is near the poultry-yard
of some hospitable farmer, and while his wearied limbs
seem to labor with extra pain, as he thinks of the couch
compared with the cold ground as a resting-place, he
hears a sudden whizzing in the air, a confused noise,
and his seeming evidences of civilization and comfort
vanish as the wild turkey disappears, giving him by
their precipitate flight, the most painful evidence that he
is far from the haunts of men and home.

Turkey hunting is a favorite pursuit with all who
can practise it with success, but it is a bird liberally
provided by nature with the instinct of self-preservation,
and is, therefore, seldom found off its guard. Skilful
indeed must be the shot that stops the turkey in its
flight of alarm, and yet its wings, as with the partridge
and quail, are little used for the purposes of escaping
from danger. It is on their speed that they rely for
safety, and we doubt if the best hounds could catch
them in a race, even if the turkey's wings were clipped
so that they could not resort to height to elude their
pursuers. So little indeed does the bird depend upon

its pinions, that they find it difficult to cross rivers
moderately wide, and in the attempt the weak and very
fat, are often sacrificed.

We have seen the wild turkey gathering in troops
upon the limb of some tall cotton wood on the banks of
the Mississippi, and we have known by their preparations
that they intended to cross the river. There on
their elevated roost they would set, stretching out their
necks as if gathering a long breath for their, to them,
prolonged flight. In the mean while, the “squatter,”
on the opposite bank, would prepare himself to take advantage
of the birds' necessities. Judging from experience
where about the “drove” would land on his side
of the stream, he would lie concealed until the flight
commenced. The birds would finally launch themselves
in the mid air, as in their progress it could be seen that
they constantly descended toward the earth,—the bank
would be reached, but numbers exhausted would fail to
reach the land, and would fall a prey to the insatiate
wave, or the rapacious wants of man.

In hunting the wild turkey, there is unfortunately
too little excitement to make it a favorite sport with
those who follow the hounds. But the uncertainty of
meeting with the bird, even if you know its haunts, and
the sudden termination of the sport, even if successful,
makes successful turkey hunters few and far between.

The cautiousness of the wild turkey is extraordinary:
it excels that of the deer, or any other game whatever;

and nothing but stratagem, and an intimate knowledge
of the habits of the bird by the hunter, will command
success. We once knew an Indian, celebrated for all
wood craft, who made a comfortable living by supplying
a frontier town with game. Often did he greet the villagers
with loads of venison, with grouse, with bear, but
seldom, indeed, did he offer the esteemed turkey for
sale. Upon being reproached for his seeming incapacity
to kill the turkey, by those who desired the bird, he defended
himself as follows:

“Me meet moose—he stop to eat, me shoot him.
Me meet bear—he climb a tree, no see Indian, me shoot
him. Me meet deer—he look up—say may be Indian,
may be stump—and me shoot him. Me see turkey great
way off—he look up and say, Indian coming sure—me
no shoot turkey, he cunning too much.”

The turkey is also very tenacious of life, and will
often escape though wounded in a manner that would
seem to defy the power of locomotion. A rifle ball has
been driven through and through the body of a turkey,
and yet it has run with speed for miles. Some hunters
have been fortunate in possessing dogs that have, without
any instruction, been good turkey hunters. These
dogs follow the scent, lead the hunter up to the haunts
of the bird, lie quiet until a shot is had, and then follow
the game if only wounded, until it is exhausted, and
thus secure a prize to the hunter, that would otherwise
have been lost. This manner of hunting the turkey,

however, cannot be called its most legitimate form; as
will be noticed in the progress of our chronicle.

The taste that makes the deer and fox hunt a favorite
amusement, is not the foundation on which to build
a true turkey hunter. The baying of hounds, the
clamor of the horn, the excitement of the chase, the
pell-mell and noisy demonstration, are all destructive to
the successful pursuit of the turkey,—consequently, the
turkey hunter is distinct and peculiar; he sympathises
with the excentric habits of the bird, with its love of
silence, with its obscurity, and it is no objection to him,
if the morning is whiled away in the deep solitude, in
comparative inaction, for all this favors contemplation
worthy of an intellectual mind.

It is unnecessary to describe the bird, though we
never see it fairly represented except in the forest.
The high-mettled racer that appears upon the course
is no more superior to the well fed cart-horse, than is
the wild turkey to the tame; in fact, nothing living
shows more points of health and purity of blood than
this noble bird. Its game head, and clear hazel eye,
the clean, firm step, the great breadth of shoulder, and
deep chest, strike the most superficial observer. Then
there is an absolute commanding beauty about them,
when they are alarmed or curious; then they elevate
themselves to their full height, bringing their head perpendicular
with their feet, and gaze about, every feather
in its place, the foot upraised ready at an instant to

strike off at a speed, that, as has been said of the ostrich,
“scorneth the horse and his rider.”

As a general thing, turkey-hunters, if they be of
literary habits, read Isaak Walton, and Burton's “Anatomy
of Melancholy,” and all—learned or unlearned—
are, of course, enthusiastic disciples of the rod and line.
The piscator can be an enthusiastic admirer of the opera,
the wild turkey-hunter could not be, for his taste
never carries him beyond the simple range of natural
notes. Herein, he excels.

Place him in the forest with his pipe, and no rough
Pan ever piped more wilily, or more in harmony with
the scenes around him. The same tube modulates the
sound of alarm, and the dulcet strains of love; it plays
plaintively the complaining notes of the female, and, in
sweet chirrups, calls forth the lover from his hiding-place;
it carols among the low whisperings of the fledgling,
and expresses the mimic sounds of joy at the treasure
of food, that is discovered under the fallen leaf, or
half hidden away in the decaying wood.

And all this is done so craftily, that ears, on which
nature has set her stamp of peculiar delicacy, and the
instinct, true almost as the shadow to the sunlight; are
both deceived.

The wild turkey-hunter is a being of solitude. There
is no noise or boisterous mirth in his pursuit.

Even the dead leaf, as it sails in circuitous motion
to the earth, intrudes upon his caution, and alarms the

wary game, which, in its care of preservation, flies as
swiftly before the imaginary, as before the real danger.

Often, indeed, is the morning's work destroyed by
the cracking of a decayed limb, under the nimble spring
of the squirrel. The deer and timid antelope will stop
to gratify curiosity; the hare scents the air for an instant,
when alarmed, before it dashes off; but the turkey
never speculates, never wonders; suspicion of danger,
prompts it to immediate flight, as quickly as a reality.

The implements of the turkey-hunter are few and
simple; the “call,” generally made of the large bone of
the turkey's wing, or a small piece of wood, into which is
driven a nail, and a small piece of oil stone (the head
of the nail on being quickly scraped on the stone, producing
perfectly the noise of the female turkey), and a
double-barrel fowling-piece, complete the list. A rifle
is used where the game is plentiful; and the person using
it, as we have already described, depends upon the sagacity
and speed of the dog, to rescue the wounded bird,
for the turkey never instantly dies, except wounded in
the brain.

Where turkeys are plentiful and but little hunted,
unskilful persons succeed in killing them; of such hunters
we shall not speak.

The bird changes its habits somewhat with its
haunts, growing wilder as it is most pursued; it may,
therefore, be said to be the wildest of game. Gaining
in wisdom according to the necessity, it is a different

bird where it is constantly sought for as game, from
where it securely lives in the untrodden solitude. The
turkey will, therefore, succeed at times in finding a
home in places comparatively “thickly settled,” and
be so seldom seen, that they are generally supposed to
be extinct. Under such circumstances, they fall victims
only to the very few hunters who may be said to
make a science of their pursuit.

“I rather think,” said a turkey-hunter, “if you
want to find a thing very cunning, you need not go to
the fox or such varmints, but take a gobbler. I once
hunted regular after the same one for three years, and
never saw him twice.

“I knew the critter's `yelp' as well as I know Music's,
my old deer dog; and his track was as plain to
me as the trail of a log hauled through a dusty road.

“I hunted the gobbler always in the same `range,'
and about the same `scratchins,' and he got so, at last,
that when I `called,' he would run from me, taking the
opposite direction to my own foot-tracks.

“Now, the old rascal kept a great deal on a ridge, at
the end of which, where it lost itself in the swamp, was
a hollow cypress tree. Determined to outwit him, I
put on my shoes, heels foremost, walked leisurely down
the ridge, and got into the hollow tree, and gave a
`call,' and boys,” said the speaker exultingly, “it would
have done you good to see that turkey coming towards
me on a trot, looking at my tracks, and thinking I had
gone the other way.”

Of all turkey-hunters, our friend W— is the most
experienced; he is a bachelor, lives upon his own plantation,
studies, philosophizes, makes fishing tackle, and
kills turkeys. With him, it is a science reduced to certainty.
Place him in the woods where turkeys frequent,
and he is as certain of them as if already in his possession.

He understands the habits of the bird so well, that
he will, on his first essay, on a new hunting ground, give
the exact character of the hunters the turkeys have been
accustomed to deal with. The most crafty turkeys are
those which W— seeks, hemmed in by plantations,
inhabiting uncultivatable land, and always in more or
less danger of pursuit and discovery, they become, under
such circumstances, wild beyond any game whatever.

They seem incapable of being deceived, and taking
every thing strange, as possessed to them of danger—
whether it be a moth out of season—or a veteran hunter—they
appear to common, or even uncommon observers,
annihilated from the country, were it not for
their footprints occasionally to be seen in the soft soil
beside the running stream, or in the light dust in the
beaten road.

A veteran gobbler, used to all the tricks of the
hunter's art—one who has had his wattles cut with
shot; against whose well-defended breast had struck the
spent ball of the rifle—one who, though almost starved,
would walk by the treasures of grain in the “trap” and

“pen,”—a gobbler who will listen to the plaintive note of
the female until he has tried its quavers, its length, its repetitions,
by every rule nature has given him—and then,
perhaps not answer, except in a smothered voice, for
fear of being deceived;—such a turkey will W— select
to break a lance with, and, in spite of the chances
against him, win.

We then have here the best specimen of wild turkey-hunting;
an exhibition of skill between the perfection
of animal instinct, and the superior intellect
of man.

The turkey-hunter, armed with his “call,” starts
into the forest; he bears upon his shoulder the trusty
gun. He is either informed of the presence of turkeys,
and has a particular place or bird in view, or he makes
his way cautiously along the banks of some running
steam; his progress is slow and silent; it may be that
he unexpectedly hears a noise, sounding like distant
thunder; he then knows that he is in close proximity
of the game, and that he has disturbed it to flight.
When such is the case, his work is comparatively done.

We will, for illustration, select a more difficult hunt.
The day wears towards noon, the patient hunter has
met no “sign,” when suddenly a slight noise îs heard—
not unlike, to unpractised ears, a thousand other woodland
sounds; the hunter listens; again the sound is
heard, as if a pebble dropped into the bosom of a little
lake. It may be that woodpecker, who, desisting from

his labors, has opened his bill to yawn—or, perchance,
yonder little bird so industriously scratching among the
dead leaves of that young holly. Again, precisely the
same sound is heard; yonder, high in the heavens, is a
solitary hawk, winging its way over the forests, its rude
scream etherealized, might come down to our ears, in
just such a sound as made the turkey-hunter listen;
—again the same note—now more distinct. The quick
ear of the hunter is satisfied; stealthily he intrenches
himself behind a fallen tree, a few green twigs are
placed before him, from among which protrudes the
muzzle of his deadly weapon.

Thus prepared, he takes his “call,” and gives one
solitary “cluck”—so exquisitely—that it chimes in with
the running brook and the rustling leaf.

It may be, that a half a mile off, if the place be favorable
for conveying sound, is feeding a “gobbler;”
prompted by his nature, as he quickly scratches up the
herbage that conceals his food, he gives utterance to the
sounds that first attracted the hunter's attention.

Poor bird! he is bent on filling his crop; his feelings
are listless, common-place; his wings are awry;
the plumage on his breast seems soiled with rain; his
wattles are contracted and pale,—look! he starts—
every feather is instantly in its place, he raises his delicate
game-looking head full four feet from the ground,
and listens; what an eye! what a stride is suggested by
that lifted foot! gradually the head sinks; again the

bright plumage grows dim, and with a low cluck, he resumes
his search for food.

The treasures of the American forest are before
him; the choice pecan-nut is neglected for that immense
“grub worm” that rolls down the decayed stump,
too large to crawl; now that grasshopper is nabbed;
presently a hill of ants presents itself, and the bird
leans over it, and, with wondering curiosity, peering
down the tiny hole of its entrance, out of which are issuing
the industrious insects.

Again that cluck greets his ear, up rises the head
with lightning swiftness, the bird starts forward a pace
or two, looks around in wonder, and answers back.

No sound is heard but the falling acorn; and it
fairly echoes, as it rattles from limb to limb, and dashes
off to the ground.

The bird is uneasy—he picks pettishly, smooths
down his feathers, elevates his head slowly, and then
brings it to the earth; raises his wings as if for flight,
jumps upon the limb of a fallen tree, looks about, settles
down finally into a brown study, and evidently commences
thinking.

An hour may have elapsed—he has resolved the matter
over; his imagination has become inflamed; he has
heard just enough to wish to hear more; he is satisfied,
that no turkey-hunter uttered the sounds that
reached his ear, for they were too few and far between;
and then there rises up in his mind some disconsolate

mistress, and he gallantly flies down from his low perch,
gives his body a swaggering motion, and utters a distinct
and prolonged cluck—significant of both surprise
and joy.

On the instant, the dead twigs near by crack beneath
a heavy tread, and he starts off under the impression
that he is caught; but the meanderings of some ruminating
cow inform him of his mistake. Composing
himself, he listens—ten minutes since he challenged,
when a low cluck in the distance reaches his ears.

Now, our gobbler is an old bird, and has several times,
as if by a miracle, escaped from harm with his life; he
has grown very cunning indeed.

He will not roost two successive nights upon the
same tree, so that daylight never exposes him to the
hunter, who has hidden himself away in the night to
kill him in the morning's dawn.

He never gobbles without running a short distance
at least, as if alarmed at the noise he makes himself—he
presumes every thing is suspicious and dangerous, and
his experience has heightened the instinct.

Twice, when young, was he coaxed within gun-shot:
but got clear by some fault of the percussion-caps—after
that, he was fooled by an idle schoolboy, who was a kind
of ventriloquist, and would have been slain, had not the
urchin overloaded his gun.

Three times did he come near being killed by heedlessly
wandering with his thoughtless playfellows.

Once he was caught in a “pen,” and got out by an
overlooked hole in its top.

Three feathers of last year's “fan,” decayed under
the weight of a spring-trap.

All this experience has made him a “deep” bird;
and he will sit and plume himself, when common hunters
are tooting away, but never so wisely as to deceive him
twice. They all reveal themselves by overstepping the
modesty of nature, and woo him too much; his loves
are far more coy, far less intrusive.

Poor bird! he does not know that W— is spreading
his snare for him, and is even then so sure of his
victim, as to be revolving in his mind whether his goodly
carcass should be a present to a newly-married friend,
or be served up in savory fumes, from his own bachelor
but hospitable board.

The last cluck heard by the gobbler, fairly roused
him, and he presses forward; at one time he runs with
speed; then stops as if not yet quite satisfied; something
turns him back; still he lingers only for a moment
in his course, until coming to a running stream,
where he will have to fly; the exertion seems too much
for him.

Stately parading in the full sunshine, he walks along
the margin of the clear water, admiring his fine person
as it is reflected in the sylvan mirror, and then, like
some vain lover, tosses his head, as if to say, “let them
come to me:” the listless gait is resumed, expressive
that the chase is given up.

Gaining the ascent of a low bank, that lines the
stream he has just deserted, he stops at the foot of a
young beech; in the green moss that fills the interstices
of the otherwise smooth bark is hidden away a cricket;
the turkey picks at it, without catching it; something
annoys him.

Like the slipper of Cinderella to the imagination of
the young prince, or the glimpses of a waving ringlet or
jewelled hand, to the glowing passions of a young heart,
is the remembrance of that sound, that now full two
hours since was first heard by our hero—and has been,
in that long time, but twice repeated. He speculates
that in the shady woods that surround him, there must
wander a mate; solitarily she plucks her food, and calls
for me—the monster man, impatient of his prey, doles
not out his music so softly or so daintily—I am not
deceived, and, by my ungallant fears, she will be won
by another.

Cluck.—

How well-timed the call. The gobbler now entirely
off his guard, contracts himself, opens wide his mouth,
and rolls forth, fearlessly, a volume of sound for his
answer.

The stream is crossed in a flutter, the toes scarce
indent themselves in the soft ground over which they
pass. On, on he plunges, until caution again brings
him to a halt. We could almost wish that so fine a bird
might escape—that there might be given one “call” too

much—one, that grated unnaturally on the poor bird's
ear—but not so,—they lead him to his doom, filling his
heart with hope and love.

To the bird there is one strange incongruity in the
“call”—never before has he gone so far with so little
success; but the note is perfect, the time most nicely
given.

Again he rolls forth a loud response, and listens—
yet no answer: his progress is still slow.

The cluck again greets his ear; there was a slight
quaver attached to it this time, like the forming of a
second note; he is nearing his object of pursuit, and
with an energetic “call;” he rushes forward, his long
neck stretched out, and his head moving inquiringly from
side to side.

No longer going round the various obstacles he
meets with in his path, but impatiently flying over them,
he comes to an open space, and stops.

Some six hundred yards from where he stands may
be seen a fallen tree; you can observe some green
brush, that looks as if it grew out of the very decayed
wood; in this “brush” is hidden away the deadly fowling
piece, and its muzzle is protruding towards the open
ground. Behind it is the hunter, flat upon the ground,
yet so placed that the weapon is at his shoulder. He
seems to be as dead as the tree in front of him. Could
you watch him closely, you would perceive that he
scarcely winks for fear of alarming his game.

The turkey, still in his exposed situation, gobbles:—
on the instant the hunter raises his “call” to his lips,
and gives a prolonged cluck—loud and shrill; the first
that could really be construed by the turkey into a direct
answer.

The noble bird, now certain of success, fairly dances
with delight; he starts forward, his feathers and neck
amorously playing as he advances; now he commences
his “strut”—his slender body swells, the beautiful plumage
of his breast unfolds itself—his neck curves, drawing
the neck downward—the wattles grow scarlet, while
the skin that covers the head changes like rainbow
tints. The long feathers of the wings brush the ground,
the tail rises and opens into a semicircle, the gorgeously
colored head becomes beautifully relieved in its centre.

On he comes, with a hitching gait, glowing in the
sunshine with purple and gold.

The siren cluck is twice repeated; he contracts his
form to the smallest dimensions; upwards rises the
head to the highest point; he stands upon his very toes,
and looks suspicously around; fifty yards of distance
protects him from the bolt of death: he even condescends
to pick about.

What a trial for the expectant hunter! how vividly
does he recollect that one breath too much has spoiled
a morning's work!

The minutes wear on, and the bird again becomes
the caller; he gobbles, opens his form, and, when fully

bloomed out, the enchanting cluck greets his ear; on, on
he comes—like the gay horse towards the inspiring music
of the drum, or like a bark beating against the wind,
gallantly but slowly.

The dark cold barrel of the gun is now not more
silent than is the hunter; the game is playing just outside
the very edge of its deadly reach; the least mistake,
and it is gone.

One gentle zephyr, one falling twig, might break the
charm, and make nature revolt at the coyness apparent
in the mistress, and then the lover would wing his way
full of life to the woods.

But on he comes—so still is every thing that you
hear his wings distinctly as they brush the ground,
while the sun plays in conflicting rays and colored lights
about his gaudily bronzed plumage.

Suddenly, the woods ring in echoing circles back
upon you; a sharp report is heard.

Out starts, alarmed by the noise, a blue jay, which
squalls as he passes in waving lines before you, so rudely
wakened was he from sleep.

But our rare and beautiful bird,—our gallant and
noble bird,—our cunning and game bird, where is he?

The glittering plumage—the gay step—the bright eye
—all—all are gone:—

Without a movement of the muscles, our valorous
lover has fallen lifeless to the earth.