May, z9oo [ THE minutes when he finally disappeared behind some bushes. This was the first Wild Turkey I had ever seen and at first I thought it was a domestic bird that had strayed from some ranch house. As I thought the matter over my wits came back to me and I knew there were no turkeys at any of the ranch houses in that vicinity. Arriv- ing at this conclusion, I was about to shoot, but as quickly decided not to and was afterward glad of it for I con- cluded there was more than one bird in the vicinity and thought I might pos- sibly find a nest by leaving them un- disturbed. For sometime I was dis- appointed, until one day my brother reported having seen two turkeys not far from the place where I had seen the first one. After that the birds were seen quite often and always in the same vicinity. I believe there were only two birds in the vicinity, at least there were never more than two seen at a time. I tried to persuade various persons not to shoot the birds but was somewhat dis- appointed in this, for I know it is very trying to anyone who enjoys hunting to see a fine big gobbler in range with- out taking a shot at him, and it does not worry a disinterested party much whether turkeys ever lay eggs or not, so I knew my chances of getting a set of eggs from these two birds were rather slim. As it happened, the life of the birds was only spared by the poor marksmanship of some of the natives, so I still had hopes of getting a set of eggs and made several searches in the local- ity where the birds had beeu seen so often. I had all sorts of pictures in nly ulind of the nest I wante'd so much to find, but the season rolled on and by the middle of June I came to the con- clusion that the eggs had hatched aJtd .flown, so I g? ve up all hopes of getting a set of eggs that season. Imagine my surprise when, on the ?st of July, luy brother handed me a fine set of nine turkey's eggs. AMex- CONDOR 57 ican. who was packing mining timber from the mountains was out looking for his burros one morning and flushed the old bird from the nest. The Mexican knew that my brother and I were "bird catchers" or "bug-hunters" (the terms commonly used in this vicinity for any- one interested in natural history.) So the man from the land of "Manana" told my brother about the nest and said he would let him have the eggs for "dos pesos," or in other words, $2.oo. My brother knew I would be only too glad to get the eggs at that price and agreed to take. them, so the Mexican took him to the nest. When they got within a few yards of it the old bird left and ran off into the brush. The nest was in the bed of the canon at the base of the hill, in a natural de- pression in the soft earth at the side of a rock, and just under a large white oak tree. With the half tones, this descrip- tion will hardly be necessary. The nest had a lining of leaves and small twigs, with a few feathers from the old bird scattered about. The nest was about a mile above the place where I had seen the first bird and at about 7000 feet elevation. Strange to say, the nest was within a stone's throw and in plain sight from a well-traveled trail. Taking into consideration the fact that the bird was shot at and otherwise disturbed so often, I was much sur- prised to see the nest so near the trail. Possibly the bird took the precaution of placing her nest in that position so she could watch the trail and make her es- cape at the least alarm without being seen. The eggs were all addled and I think they had been set on for at least six weeks. Fortunately I had a cold when I blew thein, so I can not say as to what per cent of "sulphurerred hy- drogen" they contained. The decaying
of the eggs was probably due to the
bird being disturbed too often while setting, or wet weather may have been the cause of it. In taking the picture of the eggs, [ placed the camera within two feet of the nest, and the picture showing the locality was taken frcnl a point about twelve feet from the nest. Both pictures were taken after sunset.
