Gobbler

“ At that moment a young gobbler ran swiftly down the slope and stopped to peer around, his long neck stretching. It was not a very long shot, and I, scorning to do less than Copple, tried to emulate him, and aimed at the neck of the gobbler. All I got, however, was a few feathers. Like a grouse he flew across the opening and was gone. We lingered there a while, hoping to see or hear more of the flock, but did neither. Copple tried to teach me how to tell the age of turkeys from their feet, a lesson I did not think I would assimilate in one hunting season. ”

“ Now that his mate is hopefully hatching on a promising nestful of eggs, the old gobbler finds time hanging heavy on his hands and by way of diversion is proceeding to beat up all other gobblers in the neighbourhood. Whenever he hears another gobbler, no matter how faintly, he lets out a wrathful gobble and starts across the fields to trample on his rival. ”

“ There are exceptions though, for I have known positively of old gobblers who took up their abode at a certain spot and roosted, if not in the same tree, in the same clump of trees, night after night and year after year with the persistent regularity of the peacock, which will roost on the same limb of a tree for ten or twenty years if undisturbed. When an old gobbler does take to this hermitlike custom, he is the most difficult bird to [155] bag in the world. His life seems immune from attacks of any nature, and he seems to know the tactics of every hunter in the vicinity of his range. ”

“ He is absolutely unique, hence you must employ entirely different tactics when you go in quest of him. He has little education, but he possesses a great native shrewdness, and I have sometimes thought him more difficult to get than either the old gobbler or hen; this may be a fool's luck, or it may be the result of stupidity or reticence, but I have killed ten old gobblers to one young one. As I have before stated, while the young males are with their mothers and sisters in the flock there is little difficulty in bringing them to the call after the flock is scattered. ”

“ What gave him the fit?" asked Mabel Herold.
"Our old turkey gobbler," answered Harry. "The gobbler has caught
Snoop by the tail. It's enough to give any cat a fit."
"I should say so!" cried Bert. "Look out! They're coming over this way! Look out!"
The children scrambled to one side, for Snoop and the big turkey gobbler were sliding, rolling and tumbling over the barn floor toward the board seats where the show audience, but a little while before, were enjoying the performance.
The girls had followed Nan and Flossie up to a low part of the haymow, and were out of the way. ”

“ The hens were trying to look under the fence and through the holes.
The gobbler looked for a minute, and then he said: "I do believe--" then he stopped. "Yes, it is," he continued, looking again; "it's a rooster."
The gobbler flew down and the turkeys followed and the master drove the gander and his family back to the yard. "You will get your wings clipped to-morrow," he said, and then from under his arm he released a big yellow-and-black rooster, which flew to the ground, looked about, spread his wings and crowed in a way that plainly said: "I am cock of this walk and king of this yard. ”

“ With the young turkey it may be his first gobble on hearing the quaver of the hen. He is made crazy, and may unceremoniously rush to any sound that in the least resembles the cry of the hen, without a thought of what he is about or of the possible consequences. This is generally the kind of gobbler the novice in calling bags as his first, a two-year-old with a five-inch beard.
In the early morning, during the spring, a gobbler will fly from his roost to the ground, strutting and gobbling, whether a hen is in sight or not ”

“ The turkeys and the geese, seeing the gander approach the hens, ran as fast as they could to hear what he was saying.
The turkey gobbler, hearing the last part of the gander's remark, said: "How can you say that you can see over all heads? Have you forgotten me and my height? And as for being king," he said, "the rooster never should have been cock of the walk. I am a much more majestic-looking bird than any rooster. No, indeed, you should never think of ruling, Sir Gander. I should be king of the yard." ”

“ Under such circumstances, and they occur very often, the hunter will very soon note, after he has quit calling, the gobbler will gobble oftener, more furiously, and strut with greater vigor. This is the time when most turkey hunters make a fatal mistake, for if you call after the gobbler starts toward you, he will stop a while at that point, and go through all the maneuvers he has been worrying you with for some time, march back and forth to his recent stand and give you another hour or two of waiting, or perhaps he will go away to return no more. ”

“ As the grass is long and wet with dew he comes to the lawn and sends her his morning greetings, and I can tell you that a forty-pound gobbler can let out a very considerable amount of noise. He gets right under my window and explodes into assorted sounds. Once a minute, or oftener, he lets out a gobble, until I get up and throw a shoe or a hairbrush at him. Then I go back to bed and try to sleep until it is time to get up. If there is any way of treating his vocal cords so as to stop this morning charivari I wish some scientist would write and tell me about it. ”

“ He pulled the arrow from the ground, then out through the bird's thigh and wing.
Ignorant Doby! Foolish boy! Not to know what playing 'possum is!
The gobbler sprang to life. Did he run? Not he! A turkey cock is a fighting cock. He whetted his spurs. His crest rose in menace. His wattles blazed scarlet. He flew at Doby in a fury.
Taken by surprise, the boy covered his face with his hand and began blindly to lunge and to fend with his knife every time the gobbler struck at him. The bird jumped at the boy. The boy stabbed at the bird. The battle grew. The gobbler would not run. Doby could not. ”

“ Hen Turkeys are most loving mothers, and in the early spring first one and then another had stolen away to lay and hatch her eggs. If a Hen Turkey wanted a chance to lay an egg at this season, she watched the Gobbler and left the flock when his back was turned. As she came near her nest, she would stop and look around to make sure he did not see where it was. She knew that the Gobbler did not like to have her raise young Turkeys, and that if he could find the nest, he would break every egg in it. ”

“ Gobbler, never got half your deserts in this barnyard. Everybody seems to think that the rooster, because he crows every morning at sunup, is the wisest bird in the yard, but as for me, I have always held you in greater esteem and have often spoken of the nobility of your looks and the regal way in which you walk about the place. If I had any voice in the matter I should suggest that you be recognized as superior to the rooster. But, you see, the hens have nothing to say, although some day I feel sure that it will be different. ”

“ All this time her movements are characterized by absolute secrecy, for if the gobbler by any chance comes upon the nest he immediately breaks every egg. He is perhaps wise enough to know that when his hens begin to set lonely times are in store for him. ”

“ The Gobbler's spread tail looked as small beside this as a Dove's egg would beside that of a Goose.
"Paon!" said the Peacock. "I am no Turkey Gobbler. I am a Peacock."
"Pffff!" said the Gobbler. Then he turned to the Hen Turkeys. "My dears," he said, "I think it is time that we walked along. The children should not be allowed to see and speak with any stray fowl that comes along. We cannot be [Pg 203] too particular about that." Then he stalked off, with the meek Hen Turkeys following and the children lagging behind. ”

“ All things considered, perhaps in the condition of the gobbler, the hunter could outrun it, that is when both possessed the same advantage; but the bird had a way of slipping through the undergrowth, dodging under bushes, and trotting over fallen trees as though they were not there, that gave him a great advantage over his pursuer. ”

“ If you desire to get your shot at the gobbler as early as possible, call as little as you can after you have got him interested. If you continue to yelp every time he gobbles, he will stop in one place and gobble anywhere from two to six hours, exhausting all your patience and temper.
In selecting a place to call from, there is one caution that should never be forgotten: never get behind a tree so that you will have to look from one side to point the gun; the turkey is sure to see you and run away before you can shoot. ”

“ In my vast experience with the turkey I have never met with anything to justify such a statement. I [123] have never seen an old gobbler attempt to fight a young one, from the egg to maturity. It is wholly unnatural from the fact that the old birds are never in a bellicose temper except during the love season or gobbling time in the spring, when jealousies arise from sexual instincts. Not in any instance, however, have I known of one turkey killing another. I have often seen two old gobblers strut up to each other, blow, puff, and rub their sides together. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If a gobbler stops, and gobbles and struts in one place some time, while you are calling him, this is good evidence that he will come to you, if you have but patience and keep quiet; nine hunters out of ten, however, take the opposite view of it, and for the lack of good understanding of the turkey, and of patience, get up and go home at the very time when success would have crowned their efforts. Now, if a hen has gone to the gobbler, as will often occur, and they are out of your sight in the brush, you will know this to [191] be the case by the long interval between gobbles ”

“ Moreover, the gobbler has had family troubles to try his temper this summer. Two flocks of his children were raised by hens, and in spite of his strutting and blandishments they refuse to have anything to do with him. Instead they obey the clucking of the mother hen, and "tweet" disdainfully at their haughty sire. In addition, his lawful spouse doesn't seem to care to have him around while she is looking after her flock. She is apparently a suffragette and quite competent to look after her own affairs. Even when a thunderstorm comes up the youngsters do not turn to the old man for protection. ”

“ Description.—Size and appearance very similar to that of the domestic bird, but tips of tail-feathers and upper tail-coverts rich deep chestnut; primaries barred with black and white; feet mahogany-red. A large Wild Turkey gobbler in spring is a magnificent creature with its rich, iridescent plumage, highly colored and wattled head, and proud carriage. ”

“ I frequently could hear two or three at once. The old gobblers commonly selected the largest trees, in the thickest woods, with limbs high up, for their roosts and as soon as it came daylight, in the east, they would be up strutting and gobbling.
They could be heard, in a still morning, for a mile or two. The gobbling of the turkey, the drumming of the partridge upon his log, the crowing of our and the neighbors' roosters and the noise of woodpeckers pounding the tops of old trees, were the principal sounds I could hear when I set out with my rifle in hand. ”

“ He crossed the wide, grassy plain and struck another gradual descent where aspens and pines crowded a shallow ravine and warm, sun-lighted glades bordered along a sparkling brook. Here he heard a turkey gobble, and that was a signal for him to change his course and make a crouching, silent detour around a clump of aspens. In a sunny patch of grass a dozen or more big gobblers stood, all suspiciously facing in his direction, heads erect, with that wild aspect peculiar to their species. Old wild turkey gobblers were the most difficult game to stalk. Dale shot two of them. ”

“ The males, or, as they are more commonly called, the gobblers, associate in parties of from ten to a hundred, and search for food apart from the females; while the latter are seen either advancing singly, each with its brood of young, then about two-thirds grown, or in connexion with other families, forming parties often amounting to seventy or eighty individuals, all intent on shunning the old cocks, which, even when the young birds have attained this size, will fight with, and often destroy them by repeated blows on the head. ”

“ As soon as the mating season begins, these gobblers will make their whereabouts known by their noise; result—the gunners are after them at once, and the chances are ten to one they will all be killed. The hens will then have no mate and no young will be produced; whereas, if but one gobbler were left, each of our supposed fifteen hens would raise an average of ten young each, and we would also have 150 new turkeys in the fall to yield sport and food. ”

“ They were not all gobblers, correctly speaking: for the flock was a promiscuous one—comprising old and young birds, as well as male and female. They were in the very situation desired by the hunters: that is far out upon the open prairie, where they could not easily retreat to the heavy timber, without giving us a long chase, plenty of sport, and probably one or two captures. They were “grazing” along the edge of a little grove or coppice—which my companions could easily identify as composed of pecan-trees—the nuts of which, no doubt, had attracted them to the place. ”