.. ' 11 11 - I— - -I w Huntmo the UifdTurReu. Scenes In The Virgin For ests of Arkansas. TURKEYS ARE PLENTIFUL The Story of the Turkey, and How the American Bird Became Fam ous. It is an easy matter to go to market for your Thanksgiving turkey, but out West they do it differently. Down in the deep bottom land forests of Arkan sas is the home of the wild turkey, and L this fall the game has been so plentiful and bo easy to get at that hardly a home In the States of Arkansas and Kansas will be without Its turkey din ner on Thanksgiving Day. There was a time when the wild turkey made his home east of the Alleghanies, hut the memory of living man runneth not to the time when they were plentiful there, for this shyest of all birds is absolutely incompatible with civilization, and he has retired year by year until now only the most secret places in the Allegha nles and the vast swamps of the South ern States give any hope for the per severing turkey hunter. The wonder is that the bird still exists at all. For ever since the white man came all man ner of nefarious schemes have been concocted for his destruction. Out in the wilds of Arkansas, where the railroads have Just begun to pene trate, the wild turkeys have not yet learned that civilization has laid claim to tills land, and this fail they often perch calmly on the branches of trees along the railway track. The train crews noticed this and engineer and firemen have a daily hunt Tor the game. They sit on their engine boxes with their shotguns in their hand while the train ambles along at the easy rate of k. twelve miles an hour. When they run Into the turkey regions they tire at them, and If they kill any they stop the train, back up to the spot, and retrieve the game. The passengers enjoy the ■port, and occasionally some who are going to or from a hunt Join in it. Some of the older sports men who twere in this country when the Kansas Pacific Railway was built remember when passengers and train crews shot I gams from the ear windows on the Kansas plains, and this Arkansas di version recalls it to their mind. The sport will not last long, however, as there is no wild game more wary than the wild turkeys. They will soon be come acquainted with the dangers along the railroad, and then railroad ing in Arkansas will once more drop back to the Bteady pace it holds else where. Taking him by and large, an old tur key gobbler is the quickest, swiftest, shyest and most knowing animal with wings or without. He can run like a greyhound, smell like a deer, see like an eagle, and fly like a wild turkey. You may have spent two hours in crawling or. your hands and knees over , a mountain open or in moving with j noiseless footsteps, each one of which i is considered with careful deliberation, and a sing'e, sudden turn of your head, snap of a twig, or gleam of sunshine on your gun will send a whole gang a mile away and up the mountain. Up ward it always is. When a wild turkey does not like the looks of things he wants the rockiest and roughest summit of the highest headland of the topmost ridge of a whole range, and he gen erally gets it. If it is steep, he runs, and he can run up faster than you can fall down. If it is a gentle rise he thrasnes the air with his mighty wings clear up obstructing tree tops, and then away he sails with the velocity that belongs to a twenty-pound feathered cannon bail. Never for a moment are all oft their guard. One, two or three of thetr tall necks are always stretched aloft, full of eyes and ears, in statuesque suspi cion. Now the old gobbler straight ens up his head, poised four feet from the ground, trim, graceful, powerful, the sun glinting on the dark, iridescent feathers of his back and lower neck. Now you decide he is in range. Your 38-calibre bullet strikes his noble breast with a muffled thump, and the giant wings wildly beat down the dry rag weed while your magazine is emptied vainly at the dark forms shooting off toward the wooded mountain side. H> is a royal creature this wild tur key, and you may hope to see an old ! aobblor tip the scales at t' /enty or twenty-five pounds. Blung over your \ shoulder by the foot, his head dangles against your heels. He is a wild mon arch, eloquent of the woods and moun tains and their innermost secrets, fed only by the most delicate wild fruits and crystal spring water, formed for the highest beauty . nd strength known to American bird kind, with a flesh more delicious than his stall-fed cousin, because of the gamy flavor imparted by the wild food. To a man whs has ■killed and eaten a November wild gob bler, Thanksgiving Day has a meaning blank to other mortals. An English writer has delved Into the history of the turkey and this is the interesting story he tells: The time of the first appearance of the turkqy In the eastern hemisphere Is doubtful. M. Brillat Savarln and other French writers attribute its in troduction to the Jesuits of Paraguay, and the above-named learned gastron omer adduces in proof of the debt we owe the followers of Loyola, the fact that In many parts of France turkeys are called “Jesuits,” by reason of the first brood having been reared at a large farm belonging to the brother hood named Bourges. This statement Js, however, decidedly at variance with another authenticated by Montiuc, who says that the first turkey ever served at table In France appeared at the nuptials of Charles IX. (A. D. 1570), -who ate a wing of the fowl for his sup per. But the probability Is that the Spaniards Introduced the turkey among us at a much earlier period, mention being made of it in Europe in the year ,1524. The first turkeys came to Ger many In 1534. Let the date, however, be what it might—whether the turkev followed In the train of Cortez or of Plzarro—to America we are Indebted fo/ it; and there, in its wild Btate, in some parts, it stlU ranges, its plumage, as in the case of the Honduras turkey (meleager ocellata), growing more lus trous and mggiUflcent as the family ex tends southward. The males, usually termed "gobblers" and no doubt meriting the name, asso ciate In parties of from ten to 100 to seed their food apart from the females, which either go about singly with their young or form troops with other hens and their families, sometimes to the number of seventy or eighty. These all avoid the old males, who attack and destroy the younger whenever they can by reiterated blows on the skull. But all parties travel In the same direction and on foot, unless the dog of a hunter or a river on their line of march cora | pels them to take wing. When about I to cross a river they select the highest ! eminence, that their flight may be more ! sure, and in such position they sometimes i stay for a day or more, as if in'consul ! tatlon. The males on such occasions gobble obstreperously, strutting about j with extraordinary importance, as If to animate tiheix companions, and the fe ! males and young assume much of the pompous air of the males and spread their tales as they move silently around. Having mounted at length to the tops of the highest trees, the assembled mul titudes, at the signal note of their lead er. wing their way to the opposite shore. 1 The old and fat birds, contrary to what might be expected, cross without difficulty, even when the river is a mils in width; but the wings of the young and meager, and. of course, those of the weak, frequently fail them before they hare completed their passage, when in i they drop and are forced to swim for : their lives, which they do eleverly i enough, spreading their tails for a sup 1 port, closing their wings, stretching out their feet. All do not succeed in such attempts, and the weaker often perish. ; The wild turkeys feed on all sorts of ! berries, fruits and grasses; also bee , ties, tadpoles, young frogs and lizards are occasionally found fn their crops. When the turkeys have arrived at ths land of abundance they disperse In flocks, devouring all the mast as thay advance. | The beginning of March is the pairing ' time, for a short time previous to which the females separate from their mates J and shun them, though the latter perti naciously follow, gobbling loudly. The sexes roost apart, but at no great dis ; tances, so that when the female utters a call every male within hearing re sponds, rolling note after note in the ; rapid succession: not as when spread 1 ing the tail and strutting near the hen, but in a voice resembling that of the tame turkey when he hears any unusual or frequently repeated noise. Where the turkeys are numerous, the woods, from one to the other, some | times for scores of miles, resound with this voice of their wooing, uttered re sponsively from their roosting places. This Is continued for about an hour, and, on the rising of th* «un, they si lently descend from their perches, and the males begin to strut for the purpose of winning the admiration of their 1 mates. I If the call be given from the ground the males in the vicinity fly toward the : individual, and, whether they perceive her or not, erect and spread their tails, throw the head backward, distend the comb and wattle, strut pompously and rustle their wings and body feathers, at the same time ejecting a puff of air from the lungs. While thus occupied they occasionally halt to look out for the female and then resume their strut ting and puffing, moving with as much rapidity as the nature of their gait will admit. During this performance the males often encounter each other and desperate battles ensue, when the con flict Is only terminated by the flight or death of the vanquished. The usual fruits of such victories are reaped by the conqueror, who is followed by one or more females, W'hich roost near him, if not upon the same tree, until they be gin to lay, when their habits are ultered with a view of saving their eggs, which the males will break, If he can get at them. -« m ■ —.— The New Flexible Jewelry. Pall Mall Gazette: Flexibility is the leading characteristic of all the newest Jewelry, many of the diamond necklets being decorated with flexible ends, in the form of loops and tassels, carried out entirely in the same precious stones. A diamond corsage ornament has two flexible ends, each being a mass of tiny stones, a sort of diamond rain, drooping downwards from a scroll shaped top,. | and finished with two large pearl drops. | Many large pearls appear, too, In a beautiful diamond necklace which is so ( contrived that It can be used when re i quired in the form of a tiara, or even as 1 an ornament for the bodice. -- A Kentucky man has married the granddaughter of the girl who refused i him. The Origin of Thanksgiving. The first recorded instance of anything In the nature of Thanksgiving in the his tory of our country is the following entry in an old bible belonging to one of the first pilgrims: * Sonne born to Susanna White, L i*mb«r 19th. 1620. vt six o'clock morn ing. Next day we meet for prayer and thanksgiving.” This, however, is not gen erally accepted as the first observance of Tthat nature, since it hardly partook of tiie character of a general thanksgiving. Hut fifteen months after the pilgrims sailed from Holland they henl • harvest festival which lasted a week This is gen was appointed as a day of Thanksg ving. in New Kn^land, but it was mn a day set apart by the governor, nor was it attend ■ ed by any religious observance. A few years later precisely the same thing occurred. Thereupon July 30, 1623, was appointed as a dlay of Thanksgiving. , and before the second sunset a relief ship , arrived. Fast days and Thanksgiving days came at irregular intervals for a ; number of years, the latter following some marked event of a beneficent nature, such ; as getting rid of Anne Hutchinson, whose preaching caused such a turmoil in New England, for the termination of King Phil lip's war and the close of the resolution and the triumph of independent e in Amer ica. Then came the practice of the gov ernor of each state naming a day for gen eral thanksgiving. These at first were not k _ _ __4 coincident, but the beautiful custom has prevailed for considerable time, and doubtless will prevail, for ages to come, of the president appointing such a day, gen erally the last Thursday in November, to which the governor of each state assents by naming the same day. Thus there is on© day each year when the forty-five stales and the territories from the Atlan tic to the Pacific and from British Amer ica to the gulf return thanks to od for his manifold blessings and mercies. Thanksgiving. A king rode forth one summer's day And all the peasants by the way Said to themselves; k How great are we— The king rides out that we may see. A housewife with her busy broom Brushed dust and crumbs from out her room; A sparow puffed himself arnd said: This dame was made to moke me bread. —Marco Morrow, in Womankind. | - . - John Brcidenthal declined with re : gret ai> invitation to join other bank i ers at a banquet in Wichita, Kan., and closed his telegram with the injunc ! taon: “I caution you not to permit ^ overdraughts.** —— ■* " LetThese Tablets HelpYou When you feel yourself taking cold, Peruna Tablets are likely to check and overcome the attack. When your appetite is fitful, your food does not taste good, Peruna Tablets will invigorate and regulate. When you are weak after illness. Peruna Tablets are noted tor their healthful Tonic Effect. When catarrh distreases you, Peruna Tablets will help your system to rid itself of this disease Msn.lin Tablet* are a delightful laxative. 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