I thought my picture would appear in this number of BIRDS. What would
Thanksgiving be without a Turkey, I'd like to know.
The editor says that I am a bird of ex-tra-or-di-na-ry size and beauty.
That word is as big as I am, but by spelling it, I guess you will
understand.
I look as proud as a peacock, don't I? Well, I am just as proud. You
ought to see me strut, and hear me talk when the hen-turkeys are around.
Why, sometimes when there is a large troop of us in the woods you can
hear us _gobble, gobble, gobble_, for many miles. We are so fond of
talking to each other.
That is when we are about to set up housekeeping, you think.
Yes, in March and April. After the nests are made, and the little
turkeys hatched out, we big, handsome fellows go off by ourselves. The
hen-turkeys, with their young broods, do the same.
Sometimes there are as many as a hundred in our troop and seventy or
eighty in theirs. We travel on foot, picking up food as we go, till we
meet a man with a gun, or come to a wide river.
Then we have to fly.
In a flock? Oh, yes. We choose some high place from which to get a good
start. There we all stay, sometimes a day or two, strutting about and
talking big. It is _gobble, gobble gobble_, from morning till night.
Just like one of your conventions, you know. After awhile our leader
gives the signal and off we all fly to the opposite shore.
Did you ever see one of our nests? No? Well, they are not easily seen,
though they are made on the ground. You see, we are cunning and build
them among tall, thick weeds and tangled briars.
I hope, if you ever come across one, you will not touch it, because my
mate would never return to it again, if you did.
What do we eat?
Berries, fruit and grasses, beetles, tadpoles, frogs and lizards. In
fact anything we consider good.