The Philosophy of Despair

xico, and from Arizona, Kansas, and Nebraska, east to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. As the turkey is not a migratory bird in the sense that migration is usually

r of these as occurring within the limits of the

ear. The cause of this is: every old gobbler that dares to open its mouth to gobble in the spring is within the hearing of farmers, negroes, and others, and is a marked bird. It is given no rest until it is kille

that they were a lot of mixed breeds, half wild, half tame, with the freedom of the former. I noticed also among them one that was nearly white and one old gobbler that was a pure wild turkey; but it was too far off to shoot him. Dropping the lunch and grasping the gun was but the work of a second; then the birds came round the end of the log and began scratching under a beech tree for nuts. Seeing two gobblers put their heads together at about forty yards from me, I fired, killing both. The flock flew and ran in all directions. One hen passed within twenty paces of me

em; one of the party killed four of them that evening, two of which (hens) were full-blood wild ones. One of the remaining two, a fine gobbler, had as red a head as any tame gobbler, and the

vious afternoon, and began to call. Very soon he had a reply, and three fine gobblers came r

ble was hardly like that of a wild turkey, the sound resembling the gobble of a turkey under a barrel, a hoarse, guttural rumble, quite different in tone from the clear, loud, rolling gobble of his cousin in the Trinity country. The gobblers of the Brazos bottoms were also distinguishable by their peculiar beards. In other varieties of turkeys three inches or less of the upper end of the beard is grayish, while t

he states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and the Indian Territory the wild turkey is still to be found in reasonable abundance, and if these states will protect them by the right sort of laws, I am of the opinion that the birds will increase rapidly, despite the encroachment of civilization and the war waged upon them by sportsmen. It is not the legitimate methods of destruction that decimate the turkey ranks, as is the case with the quail and grouse, but it is the nefarious tricks th

ature in making the male turkey polygamous; but as the male turkey is, during the spring, a very noisy bird, continually gobbling and strutting to attract his harem, and as he is much larger and more conspicuous than the hens, it is only natural that he is in more danger of being killed. Suppose the proportion of gobblers in the beginning of the spring is three to fifteen hens, in a certain stretch of woods. As soon as the mating season begins, these gobblers will make their whereabouts known by their noise; result-the gunners are afte

for the next year. The hens are all right-you need have no anxiety about them; they can take care of themselves; provided you leave them a male bird that gobbles, they will do the rest. Any suitable community can have all the wild turkeys it wants if i

m seven to nine pounds, the hens from four to seven pounds; in December and January the former weighs twelve pounds and the latter nine pounds. There you are. But suppose you did not hunt in the spring at all. How many old, long-bearded gobblers (the joy and delight above every sort of game on earth to the turkey hunter) would you

the gobbling season, from March to June, but believe they could be hunted for a limited time, namely, until the hens begin to lay and the gobblers to lose their fat-say until the first of April. Every old turkey hunter knows

o live east of the Mississippi River, and the Alabams, Conchattas, and Zunis of the west. Whether their name for the bird is a corruption of our turkey, or whether our word is a corruption of their "Furkee," I am not prepared to state. It may be that we get our name direct from the aborig

e rain. These journeyed a long way and at last found a great ladder running into the sky; they climbed up this ladder and found at the top a trapdoor leading into heaven, and on passing through the door, which was open, they saw the dwelling-place of man, and before the door were a boy and girl playing, and their playthings were the sun, moon, and stars belonging to the earth. As soon as the earth creatures saw the sun, moon, and stars, they rushed for them and, gathering them into a basket, took the children of man and hurried back to earth through the trapdoor. In their hurry to get away from the man whom they saw running after them, the trapdoor was slammed on the tail of the bear, cutting it off. The blood spattered over the lynx and trout, and since that time the bear has had no tail, and the lynx and trout are spotted. The buffalo fell down and hurt his ba

ic and historic standing; this has been ably done for me by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt of Washington, D. C., who has very