The Squirrel Hunters of Ohio; or, Glimpses of Pioneer Life

by N. E. Jones

The gun made a loud report, and so did a large gobbler as he came flapping down through the branches into the creek, having received a mortal charge of shot. The signal gun soon brought in the absent member of the expedition, who, on feeling a twenty-pound bird and hearing the explanation, moved it be made unanimous, as the only successful way to shoot wild turkeys by moonlight.

Another peculiarity of this bird may be mentioned. In the spring of the year the female birds straggle long distances from the flock, and seek temporary separation in the more open but unfrequented parts of the forest, where the male birds seldom, if ever, resort. Here they nest and rear their young. When the offspring is well grown the mother birds, with young, return to the flock, after which old and young, male and female, remain together as one family during fall and winter.

In-door naturalists and authors have given to the world many singular and absurd statements respecting the habits, sagacity and instincts of the wild turkey, since the truthful descriptions penned by John James Audubon, F.R.S., S.L. and E. And it is singular that the eminent naturalist, Thomas Nuttall, A.M.T., L.S. and C., should say he is not gregarious.

Charles Hallock, the able editor of “Forest and Stream,” author of “Camp Life,” “Sportsman’s Gazetteer,” etc., states that in the spring wild turkeys “pair off” (like blue-birds), “and after the young are hatched both parents take great interest in the growth and progress of the young family;” that they are “easily tamed; are slaughtered by moonlight while roosting; that it is rarely a wing-shot can be procured; that they are killed by sportsmen in various ways,” most of which is not much less at variance with facts in nature than the statement of Mr. Burrell Symmes, who claimed that he had outwitted the sagacity of the bird, and killed at one shot, with a rifle, a large flock that infested a wheat-stack near their range. “The turkeys would gather around the stack, every few days, as close as they could crowd their bodies, pulling out wheat-heads to eat;” and, taking in the situation, says he bent the barrel of his gun to the segment of a circle corresponding to the diameter of the area of the base of the stack. And well loaded with powder and leaden ball, concealed the weapon at the proper adjustment, placing himself in view of the situation, with a cord attached to the trigger. The turkeys came, and unsuspectingly crowded around the stack, and began their accustomed repast. Now was the moment for action—“the cord was pulled, and the gun fired, which sent the ball round and round the stack, until it mowed down every last turkey in the flock.”

Respecting the habits and peculiarities of the wild turkey, the author turned up a slip from the lips of an old North Carolina negro, who gives the best pen-picture of the home-life of the bird that has fallen to the notice of ornithologists. The authography is somewhat objectionable, but the whole story is well told. Among other things he says the wild turkey is a “mighty peert fowl;” that he can sometimes teach a fox how to be smart, while at other times a sucking calf is not half so big a fool as he makes of himself; that he had known gobblers to outwit all the hunters in the country, and then walk into some ordinary colored man’s “pen” and stay there, “a cranin he neck, an’ tryen to get out at de top w’at been all roof over, wile de hole in de groun’ w’at he came in at stans wide open.”

The “pen” was a fatal device, capturing annually thousands of those birds during early settlements. Before the extensive forests disappeared turkeys lived well in the fall and winter and fattened on the mast. But owing to the love for Indian corn they were by a moderate display of this food easily enticed into traps, called “pens,” when placed in secluded sections of forest where the birds were known to seek subsistence.

Pens were usually constructed of windfalls—old limbs of various sizes—making an inclosure of ten or twelve feet square, four feet in height, and covered with similar limbs weighted down with other limbs placed across the covering. A trench, eighteen or twenty inches deep and about the same width, cut to enter the pen two feet, terminating abruptly slanting upward. Over the part of the trench next to the wall were secured a number of small poles forming a bridge a foot wide. Outside of the pen the trench extended, rising gradually, until it reached the level of the surrounding ground.

When finished, the trap would be well-baited with corn in the center and in the trench. Small quantities were scattered off in different directions from the pen, and a few grains here and there for a mile or more. After the birds would find a few grains, the entire flock would engage in search for more, and soon the trail of corn leading to the pen would be discovered, and rushing along in haste would enter the trench unawares, and forcing the front birds in the trench under the bridge and up into the pen before danger was suspected. As soon as those in the inclosure discovered the situation, they would try to force their way through the openings in the pen, passing and repassing around and over the bridge with heads erect, never observing the opening by which they entered—their comrades would soon disappear, leaving the unfortunate birds to be taken out by the trapper.

In a good location a single pen would furnish one hundred or more turkeys during a winter. One year, J. J. Audubon kept an account of the produce of a pen which he visited daily and found that seventy-six had been caught in it, in about two months. Seven was the highest number he had ever succeeded in taking from a pen at one time, but knew of as many as eighteen being captured by others. The average success of a pen, per capture, ranged from four to five. The writer has known fifteen to be the fruits of the first visit, and no more caught that season.