Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/742011
T he turkey is a wondrous, toothsome morsel, whether it be a choice bird from the fattening pen or one of those kings of the feathered race, a grand wild fellow, slain perhaps after a deal of toil and trouble in his native haunt—some Southern woodland, Western scrub, or high-country meadow. But such birds as these are by no means easily procured, and only a favored few of the millions of feasters on Thanksgiving Day will sink tooth into genuine wild turkey meat. The price paid by the epicure for his wild bird would doubtless purchase provisions enough to feast a family of the bread-winning class on excellent fare for an entire week, so the toilers must be content with a less aristocratic fowl than Meleagris gallopavo. Year by year the birds are steadily decreasing in number, and the day is not far distant when the turkey will exist no longer in the wild state, save in a few favored portions of the South and Southwest. Easily trapped and always valuable, either for the market or for home consumption, it is hardly surprising that the birds have been eagerly sought and remorselessly slain wherever found, and were it not for their keen sight and swift and enduring running powers, they would long ago have been exterminated in certain accessible forests, where a few yet find a home. While the turkey is one of the easiest birds to trap, he is no fool to follow with rifle or shotgun in his forest ranges. Wild and shy to a degree, keen-sighted, quick-eared, swift of foot, and strong of wing when needs be, he is also sharply suspicious of a man on foot, and quite as difficult to "still-hunt" successfully as a deer. Generally ranging in heavy forest, tangled scrub, and within easy reach of some other baffling cover, no sooner does he suspect danger than his long legs bear him swiftly to the densest growth he can find, through which a man may track him for hours without either obtaining a shot or forcing him to take wing. Frequently the bird will not even be seen. The principles of good sportsmanship apply to taking the wild turkey by several methods. One of these is shooting the birds when roosting in tall timber at night. All that is necessary is first to locate 32 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S Wild turkeys were doggone rare back in 1910, but that didn't stop the author from pursuing them with a rifle or hunting them from inside a railway culvert. By ED W. SANDyS