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Wild Turkey — Part 2
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The turkey-hen, happy in his exile, even takes pains to hide herself and nest from his lordship, for he becomes frightfully jealous of anything that distracts her attention from him, and will destroy eggs or chicks in a fit of passion. Evidently jealousy is unknown to her, however, for many nests--or the area of ground that answers as such--have been reported where two hens deposited their cream colored eggs, finely and evenly speckled with brown, thus doubling the ordinary clutch into one of two dozen eggs or over. It is thought that, in such cases, the good-natured incubators relieve each other. Snakes, hawks, and other enemies in search of so toothsome a morsel as a turkey chick, and heavy rains that chill the delicate, downy fledgelings, decimate a brood, however faithfully tended by a devoted mother. It is not until they are able to fly into high roosts that her mind is relieved of many anxieties; and only when some dire calamity sweeps away her entire family does she attempt to raise a second brood. Insects, especially grasshoppers, appear to be the approved diet for all young gallinaceous fowl; the more extensive bill of fare of fruits, grain, nuts, seeds, and leaf buds comes later, when a toughened gizzard may receive the quantities of gravel necessary to grind the grain. Quit, quit, call the feeding birds, though, like domestic fowls, to quit is the last thing they seem ready to do. Where food is abundant they may wander far, but never from a chosen region, for they are not migratory; nevertheless the pointer that scents a small flock in autumn, when the innocence of young birds makes shooting a possibility to the expert, leads his master a rough and wearisome chase before a shot is offered at this peerless game bird.
COLUMBINE BIRDS
Pigeons
Doves
COLUMBINE BIRDS
(Order Columboe)
Pigeons and Doves
(Family Columbidoe)
Of three hundred birds of this order known to scientists, over one hundred are confined to the Malay Archipelago, yet there are only twenty-eight in India, fewer still in Australia, only twelve species in the whole of North America, and of that number but two pigeons and one dove now stray far enough beyond the Florida Keys and southern borders to come within the scope of this book.
Passenger, or Wild Pigeon.
Band-tailed Pigeon.
Mourning Dove.
PIGEONS AND DOVES
(Family Columbidoe)