"Yes," I replied, "and several others with them—some old ones and some yearlings; so make no mistake this time, and be sure of one of the old ones."
They were very near now, and as I made a low call all stopped and some gobbled; then on they came in a careless manner, neither strutting nor exhibiting any special passion.
I quickly got in my camera work, and ducked my head in time to see the beautiful things walking away from the gun; then two well-measured reports—and the smoke clearing away showed two grand old patriarchs flopping over on the pine straw and soon lying still. I am not sure which was the proudest—I as particeps criminis or he as executioner.
THE END
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. J.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Marsh, O. C. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1870, p. 11. Also Am. Jour. Sci., IV, 1872, 260. In a letter to me under date of April 25, 1912, Dr. George F. Eaton of the Museum of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., writes that "Type of Meleagris altus is in Peabody Museum with other types of fossil Meleagris." At the present writing I am not informed as to what these "other types" are; and I am writing of the opinion that the museum referred to by Doctor Eaton has no fossil meleagrine material that has not, up to date, been described. See also Amer. Nat., Vol. IV, p. 317.
Cope, E. D. "Synopsis of Extinct Batrachia, etc." Meleagris superbus (Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., N. S. XIV, Pt. 1, 1870, 239). A long and careful description of M. superbus [superba] will be found here, where the species is said to be "established on a nearly perfect right tibia, an imperfect left one, a left femur with the condyles broken off, and a light coracoid bone, with the distal articular extremity imperfect."
[2] Shufeldt, R. W., "On Fossil Bird-Bones Obtained by Expeditions of the University of Pennsylvania from the Bone Caves of Tennessee." The Amer. Nat., July, 1897, pp. 645-650. Among those bones were many belonging to M. g. silvestris. Professor Marsh declined to allow me to even see the fossil bones upon which he based the several alleged new species of extinct Meleagridæ which he had described.