Sometimes all do not succeed in reaching the bank. A few of the very feeblest, unable to swim with sufficient speed, get carried down by the current, and ultimately perish.
This is the winter life of the wild turkeys, when they become fat, changing their bulk from fifteen or twenty pounds—which, is their average weight—to thirty, and sometimes forty.
On the return of spring—in March—the females coquettishly separate themselves from the males; though the latter continue in flocks, following the former from place to place. Then commences the season of their loves; and though the sexes roost apart, their roosting-places are near each other. At this time the woods become animated by their vociferous calling; and if a female bird utters her note within hearing, it is taken up by scores of males, not with the gobble used by them on other occasions, but with an imitative cry, such as may be heard among their tame congeners of the farm-yard.
This calling is usually heard before the break of day; and as soon as the sun has fairly risen, the males descend from the trees, and commence strutting over the ground, with spread tail and wings, uttering at intervals the “tsut” peculiar to the species.
On such occasions two males meet, and then ensues a fight, ending in the defeat—often even the death—of the weaker. The conqueror is then joined by the female—or, more generally, females—that have been the object of this deadly rivalry; and, during the next month or so, he holds these as his harem, roosting by or near them, and performing the duties of a protector. In time, however, they become shy of him—stealing off to deposit their eggs; which, should he chance to discover them, will be instantly broken by the blows of his paternal beak!
The nest consists of a few dried leaves, collected carelessly on the ground—sometimes among the tops of a fallen tree, sometimes on a dry hillock in a thicket of sumach or bramble, or by the side of a dead log.
As already stated, the wild turkey is still to be found within the limits of the old States of the American Union. It is more common in the Mississippi Valley, where it is still possible to obtain these birds in considerable numbers.
The usual mode of capturing them is by a trap—known as a turkey-trap—a contrivance of the simplest kind.
A square enclosure, of some six or eight feet wide, is constructed—the materials being split pieces of timber—usually the ordinary fence-rail, which is always eight feet in length.
These, resting at right angles on one another, form a rectangular enclosure, which, when carried up to the height of six or seven feet, is covered in by the same sort of rails, laid at regular intervals along the top. Care is taken that the spaces between them be not wide enough to permit the passage of a turkey; and the top rails are also secured by a heavy log, which hinders the bird—strong though he be—from forcing them out of their place. The trap is constructed on the declivity of a hill; and on the lower side, a cut or tunnel is excavated, leading under the bottom rail, inwards. The cut is then continued for a few yards down the slope, when it runs out to the common level of the ground.