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Show Pi THE quail is smart and cunning. He has to be to defend himself against the fox, the rat, the snake, the wildcat and the hunter's gun, to mention only a few of his enemies. But for wildness and alertness, for certain uncanny methods of defense and self-protection, not even the elusive quail cao match the wild turkey. With so many sports either restricted re-stricted or in temporary doubt, your correspondent de cided to make a closer study of one of the world's greatest great-est game birds, in the role of an amateur ama-teur naturalist, not a hunter. In either case the results are usually the same, so far as any depletion of wild turkey life is concerned. I'll give you just Grantland Rice one example. The wild turkey ranges from 16 to 24 pounds. Coming toward you, he looks a trifle larger than a B-29. But try to see him wherever he lights. I happened to be guided by a noted and expert wild-turkey hunter, and we saw a big gobbler fly into the swamp less than 20 yards away from where we stood. Yet he suddenly disappeared dis-appeared from sight, although he was still' in the spot that he had selected as his landing field. For over 10 minutes, from our close observation point, the guide and I tried to spot this huge specimen. We could never see him, after he lit in the swampy underbrush. A trifle later on, another big gobbler, gob-bler, weighing over 20 pounds, lit in a tall Georgia pine. Spot, the keen-eyed keen-eyed guide, then gave me a nature na-ture lesson. As you may or may not know, a tall pine runs up to a leafy cluster at the top. Real Camouflage "I'd like to show you," Spot said, "the greatest camouflage in nature. As you know, a quail is small and always hard to see in thick sage or any form of cover. But the quail is a small bird. The turkey is big and black. I'd like to take you to a place right underneath that pine and see if you tell me where that big turkey is." We slipped quietly to the trunk of the tree. I looked for at least 10 minutes min-utes and could see nothing nothing except the top of a pine tree. "Yet I had watched that turkey light and I knew just about where he was. At this point I turned to Spot who has the eyes of four hawks. "Where is he?" I asked. "I haven't found him yet," the guide said. "Yet I know within 4 feet of where he lit." Finally Spot said "There he is." He pointed directly. I still couldn't see him, although more than 20 pounds of bird were In my direct vision. Spot laughed. "Dont worry about that," he said, "I've lived in these woods and swamps most of my life. There have been many times when I've seen a wild turkey light in the top of a pine and marked his landing land-ing spot within 2 or 3 feet. Yet I've often stood under that tree for over 20 minutes and then disgustedly walked away. I just couldn't locate the bird. It doesn't sound right, but that's the way it is. There is some sort of a blend that a wild turkey has with nature that keeps him nlive. There are thousands of wild turkeys down this way and if it wasn't for this color protection there wouldn't be any left." Keen Hearing, Too I also discovered that the wild turkey's tur-key's hearing is an incredible thing. We were stalking a flock of 20 turkeys, tur-keys, about 200 yards away. Eleven of these were feeding. The 12th was on guard. "One of the older brood turkeys," Spot said. "They keep watch over the flock." A few seconds later, when we were close to 180 yards away, I happened to step on a small twig. In a split second the lead or guarding guard-ing turkey was on his way and the others followed. A wild turkey can fly or run. He can run almost as fast as a dog. And he can move through the air. But above all he can see and hear and he can hide himself and his 20 pounds in 2 feet of young grass. He is, to my mind, our greatest game bird. He is smart, game, cunning cun-ning and tough- One wild turkey down this way found himself in a nest of five tame turkeys and killed or maimed them all. Here was further fur-ther proof that while civilization has its certain points, it leads to softness and not to the survival of the fittest. Baseball's Prospects Here is a statement from a well-known well-known sports official who is close to the Washington picture: "I'm convinced that no one in authority at Washington is going to order baseball stopped. We all hope chat baseball can go on. But I can tell you the man-power and travel restrictions will be much harder than they have ever been before. be-fore. Baseball may survive the storm. But I believe it will be rougher rough-er going than many connected with the game think. |