The wild turkeys feed on maize, all sorts of berries, fruits, grasses, and beetles; tadpoles, young frogs, and lizards, are occasionally found in their crops. The pecan nut is a favorite food, and so is the acorn, on which last they fatten rapidly. About the beginning of October, while the mast still hangs on the trees, they gather together in flocks, directing their course to the rich bottom-lands, and are then seen in great numbers on the Ohio and Mississippi. This is the _turkey-month_ of the Indians. When they have arrived at the land of abundance, they disperse in small, promiscuous flocks of both sexes and every age, devouring all the mast as they advance. Thus they pass the autumn and winter, becoming comparatively familiar after their journeys, when they venture near plantations and farm-houses. They have even been known, on such occasions, to enter stables and corn-cribs in quest of food. Numbers are killed in the winter, and preserved in a frozen state for distant markets. The beginning of March is the pairing season, for a short time previous to which the females separate from their mates, and shun them, though the latter pertinaciously follow them, gobbling loudly. The sexes roost apart, but at no great distance, so that when the female utters a call, every male within hearing responds, rolling note after note in the most rapid succession; not as when spreading 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 end to the other, sometimes for hundreds of miles, resound with this remarkable voice of their wooing, uttered responsively from their roosting-places. This is continued for about an hour; and, on the rising of the sun, they silently descend from their perches, and the males begin to strut for the purpose of winning the admiration of their mates.