2-982-536 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sporting Scenes in Canada - Wild Turkey Shooting, 1858. 'The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo, Linn.) is fast disappearing from the woods of Canada...Their extinction will be hastened by the reckless manner in which they are destroyed by trapping- a wholesale mode of slaughter adopted by the thoughtless and avaricious "bush-whackers"...The most legitimate and sportsmanlike mode of pursuing these birds is by stalking or "still-hunting" them in the snow...The hunter is attired in a white blanket coat, having a white handkerchief tied over his cap, so as not to attract the eyes of the watchers as he glides like a shadow from tree to tree, following the tracks with silent, mocassin-sheathed foot, until he arrives within favourable distance for a shot. In the Sketch he is represented as having just stalked up to his birds, which are feeding, by the margin of a snow-covered pond, upon such scanty reed-tops as creep out through the snow. He pauses before he picks off the old "gobbler," or leader of the flock, for a chance of getting two of them in a line. His weapon is a rifle, with a slender stock deeply arched to fit the shoulder, and a long, heavy barrel with a very small bore, giving it the appearance of a drilled crowbar'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.