ASSOCIATION OF SEXES
Once I saw fifteen gobblers feeding in a hollow between two ridges. I
dismounted from my horse, crawling to the brow of the hill in order
that I might peep over and have a good look at them. I had no gun
with me at the time, so I lay upon the ground and watched the turkeys
feeding and scratching for about two hours. They were apparently all
of one flock; but finally a party of nine, all of which were old
gobblers, having long beards that trailed upon the ground as they
fed, withdrew in one direction, while the other six, which were young
or yearling gobblers and beardless, departed in another direction.
This was done without any signal that I could discern. A few days
later, as I was passing the same place with my rifle, I found, right
on the identical spot, the same fifteen gobblers, nine old ones and
six young ones, scratching and feeding as before. They soon began
to feed away from me, and as I saw they were to pass over a ridge,
I fired at the nearest, which was about one hundred and twenty-five
yards away, tumbling him over, and the rest of the flock ran away.
Two weeks after this incident I was driving in the same woods for
deer. The hounds flushed one detachment of this flock of turkeys (the
nine old gobblers), which took refuge in the trees; and my brother,
who was on a stand near where they lit, shot two of the turkeys as
they perched in the tall pines within rifle shot of him. These birds
were noble fellows, weighing twenty-one pounds each, and they were
fat. This was in January.
As shown, the young gobbler will occasionally associate with the old
ones, but he seldom remains long in their company. Why this is so I
do not know, as I have never known them to quarrel, jostle, fight,
or disagree in any way. I have come to the conclusion that the cause
of the separation must be the want of congeniality between old age
and youth. This division and separation into classes embraces about
three months, December, January, and February, and part of March.
The hens are more sociable and gregarious in their ways than the
males, collecting in immense flocks. The flocks of the gobblers are
seldom more than fifteen or twenty, while I have seen from thirty to
seventy-five hens in a single flock in which there was not a single
male. I imagine the greater size of the flocks containing females to
be on account of the gobblers being killed in far greater numbers
than the hens. Just before the time of the final separation of the
sexes, the young males, their sisters, their mothers, and other
old hens that have lost their broods, associate in a very sociable
manner, traveling and roosting together. Audubon says: "The turkey
is irregularly migratory, as well as irregularly gregarious. In
relation to the first of these circumstances, I have to state that
whenever the mast in one part of the country happens to exceed that
of another, the turkeys are insensibly led to that spot by gradually
meeting in their haunts with more fruit the nearer they advance
toward the places of greatest plenty. In this manner flock follows
flock until one district is entirely deserted while another is
overflowed by them, but as these migrations are irregular, and extend
over vast expanse of country, it is necessary that I should describe
the manner in which they take place. About the beginning of October,
when scarcely any seed and fruit has yet fallen from the trees, the
birds assemble in flocks and gradually move toward the rich bottom
lands of the Ohio and the Mississippi. The males, or as they are
commonly called, gobblers, associate in parties from ten to one
hundred, and search for food apart from the females, while the latter
are singly advancing, each with its brood about two thirds grown,
or in connection with other families, often amounting to seventy or
eighty individuals all intent on shunning the old cocks, which, even
when the young brood have attained this size, will fight and often
destroy them by repeated blows on the head." This last assertion of
the great author I feel obliged to criticise. In my vast experience
with the turkey I have never met with anything to justify such a
statement. I 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 watched, expecting to see a crash, but there was not a motion to
strike, and this was in the love season while there was a bevy of
hens all around. They do not fight in the summer, fall, and winter,
but of course now and then old gobblers will fight in the beginning
of the mating season.
The young broods and their mothers do not associate at any time
with the old gobblers, except as I have described, neither do they
run away from them in fear. If all that Audubon and other writers
say about the wild gobbler were believed, he would be universally
regarded as the most bellicose and brutal villain in the bird world;
for, according to various writers, he spends the greater part of
his time making war on his own kind, besides murdering his tender
offspring. Certainly there is no bird more affectionate to its female
under the same condition, or more gallant and proud of her company,
and it does not seem likely that he would wilfully destroy in cold
blood his own family.
The old hens that have not succeeded in raising a brood of their own
will join hens who have, and assist in rearing the young. Again,
Audubon says: "When they come upon a river they partake themselves to
the highest eminence, and there often remain a day or two as if in
consultation. During this time the males are heard gobbling, calling,
and making much ado, and are seen strutting about as if to raise the
courage to a pitch before the emergency of crossing."
[Illustration: The beginning of the strut. These gobblers are
strutting before the camera hidden by brush in an endeavor
to attract the hen turkey whose love call the camera man is
imitating with his "caller."]
I will say in this connection that turkeys may so act in rare
instances, if the stream be exceptionally wide, thus delaying their
progress for an hour; for turkeys do not like to fly under any
conditions, nor will they use their wings save when necessary. But I
have never seen a river that they could not easily cross, starting at
the water's edge, rising as they fly, and alighting in the tops of
the trees on the opposite bank. Mr. J. K. Renaud, of New Orleans, and
I, while paddling a skiff up a small lake in Alabama, once counted a
flock of sixteen turkeys flying across the lake some distance ahead
of us. We noticed that they just barely skimmed over the water and
rose to the top of a higher ridge on the opposite side, where they
alighted, and not even one touched the water. This lake was probably
three hundred yards wide.
Audubon says: "Even the females and young assume something of the
pompous demeanor, spreading their tails and running around each
other, purring loudly, and making extravagant leaps. I have seen this
running round, purring, dancing, and 'ring-around a rosy' in the
spring, but not to any extent at any other time."
As many of my readers have never had the opportunity or pleasure of
reading the beautiful and expressive lines of Audubon on the wild
turkey, I will be pardoned if I introduce some extracts from this
great author. He says: "As early as the middle of February they [the
turkeys] begin to experience the impulse of propagation. The females
separate and fly from the males. The latter strenuously pursue and
begin to gobble, or utter the notes of exultation. The sexes roost
apart, but at no great distance from each other. When a female utters
a call-note, all the gobblers within hearing return the sound,
rolling note after note with as much rapidity as if they intended
to emit the last and first together, not with the spread tails as
when fluttering round the hens on the ground, or practising on the
branches of trees on which they have roosted for the night, but much
in the manner of the domestic turkey when an unusual noise elicits
its singular hubbub."
By this he means, when the wild gobbler on the roost hears the call
of the hen, he gobbles, and dances on the limb without strutting, the
same as the tame gobbler will gobble when hearing a shrill whistle or
other sudden acute sound, without evincing any amorous feelings; but
it is not always so. I have often seen the wild gobbler strut on his
roost, and I have shot them in such an act when in full round strut.
Audubon also says: "If the call of the hen is from the ground, all
the males immediately fly toward the spot, and the moment they reach
it, whether the hen be in sight or not, spread out and erect their
tails, draw the head back on the shoulders, depress the wings with
a quivering motion, and strut pompously about, emitting at the same
time successions of puffs from their lungs, stopping now and then
to listen and look, but whether they spy females or not, continue
to puff and strut, moving with as much celerity as their ideas of
ceremony seem to admit."
Now, here are some of the greatest errors of the great naturalist in
all his turkey lore, or else the wild turkey gobbler has materially
changed his ways. The gobblers do not immediately fly to the call of
the hen, and no turkey hunter of experience will admit this.
There are perhaps instances, extremely rare ones though, when a
gobbler will fly instantly to a hen on hearing her call, or even
at sight of her. Only in two instances in my life have I witnessed
it, and on both occasions the gobblers were young birds two years
old, and acted a good deal like a schoolboy with his first
sweetheart--who smiles and laughs at everything she says and does.
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; this is done to attract the hens, and it is then
you will hear the puffs to which Audubon refers. This sound is
produced by the gobbler in expelling the air from its lungs, at the
beginning of the strut, the sounds and motions of which have never
been satisfactorily described. While going through the strut the
gobbler produces a number of notes and motions that are of interest;
first, the wings are drooped until the first six or eight feathers
at the end of the wings touch the ground; at the same time the
tail is spread until like an open fan and erected at right angles
to the body; the neck is drawn down and back until the head rests
against the shoulder feathers, and the body feathers are all thrown
forward until they stand about at right angles to their normal
place. At the same time the body is inflated with air, which, with
the drooping wings, spread tail, and ruffled feathers, gives the
bird the appearance of a big ball. Having blown himself up to the
full capacity of his skin, the gobbler suddenly releases the air,
making a puff exactly as if a person, having inflated the cheeks to
their full capacity, suddenly opens the mouth. As the puff is given,
the bird steps quickly forward four or five paces, dragging the
ends of the stiff wing feathers along the ground, making a rasping
sound; he throws forward his chest, and, gradually contracting the
muscles, forces the air from his body with a low, rumbling boom, the
feathers resuming their normal position as the air is expelled. Three
distinct sounds are produced: "_Puff, cluck, b-o-o-r-r-r-m-i_." At
the termination of the gobbling season the primaries of the wings,
which are used to produce the cluck, are badly worn by the continued
dragging on the ground.
"While thus occupied," continues Audubon, "the males often encounter
each other, and desperate battles take place, ending in bloodshed and
often in the loss of many lives, the weaker falling under repeated
blows inflicted upon their heads by the stronger. I have often been
much diverted while watching two males in fierce conflict by seeing
them move alternately back and forth as either had obtained a better
hold, their wings dropping, tails partly raised, body feathers
ruffled, and heads covered with blood. If in their struggle and gasps
for breath one of them should lose his hold, his chance is over, for
the other, still holding fast, hits him violently with his spurs and
wings and in a few moments brings him to the ground. The moment he is
dead the conqueror treads him underfoot; but what is stranger, not
with hatred, but with all the emotions he employed in caressing the
female."
I differ with Audubon, not in the case of the conqueror using
affectionate conduct upon a fallen foe, should he get him down,
as that is truly a freak with them; but I have not seen such a
performance with wild birds, although I have noticed the domestic
gobbler act similarly toward the body of a dead wild gobbler that
I had placed before him on the ground. I have very often brought
such a bird into the presence of a tame one, when, at the very sight
of the dead bird on my back, the tame one would begin to droop his
wings, purr, bow his neck, and bristle for a fight, and at once
pounce upon the dead bird, even pounding me until I laid it down and
allowed him to vent his rage by pounding it. After this he would
begin to strut and gobble, and the red of his head becoming intense
he would go through the caressing motions. More often though, under
the circumstances, the tame bird would, at the sight of the dead
wild gobbler, retire a little way and strut in a furious manner for
an hour or two. This does not apply to one instance or individual,
but many times in many places. I must differ with Audubon as to
the results of these conflicts ever being fatal. I have seen many
encounters as he describes, but have never in all my life seen one
gobbler killed by another, or even crippled, although I have seen
two or three birds fight together for hours at a time. Nor have
I ever found a gobbler dead in the woods as a result of such an
encounter, or even in a worried condition. I have killed many old
gobblers and found their heads and necks covered with blood, with
spur punctures all over their breasts; but this never stopped them
from gobbling, nor are these wounds deep, as the spur, which is an
inch and a quarter long in the oldest of them, can only penetrate the
skin of the body after passing through the heavy mail of thick, tough
feathers.
Another proof that the gobblers in my hunting grounds were not killed
this way is that I should have missed them. How would you know? you
might ask. In the same way that a stock owner knows when he misses a
yearling from his herd. Being constantly in the woods, I knew every
gobbler and his age (at least the length of his beard) within a
radius of several miles, although there be three in one locality and
five in another. During the time they were in flocks or bands, if
one were missing, surely I would find it out ere long; and it has
never yet happened that, when one was missing, I could not trace it
to a gunshot and not to turkey homicide. I will not flatly dispute
that there have been such incidents as cited by Audubon, met with
by others; but I do claim that murder is not common among turkeys,
and such incidents must be extremely rare, or I would have witnessed
them. I can see no way by which one turkey can kill another; for,
as I have said before, the spur is not long enough except to barely
penetrate the thick feathers, and the biting and pinching of the
tough skin on the neck and head could not cause contusion sufficient
to produce death, nor are the blows from the wings sufficiently
severe to break bones.