194 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The marshes resound with their cries, and after some days of chattering, 

 flying back and forth, and a general bustle, they suddenly start off in consider- 

 able flocks, and a few laggards which remain get away by the 7th or 8th of 

 October. 



There is a southward migration through the Mississippi Valley 

 to the Gulf coast of Louisiana and Texas, but the main flight trends 

 more to the southwestward to the principal winter home of the 

 species in California. Doctor Coues (1874) writes: 



The " speckle-bellies," as they are called in California, associate freely at 

 all times with both tlie snow and Hutcliins geese, and appear to have the same 

 general habits, as well as to subsist upon the same kinds of food. Their 

 flesh is equally good for the table. As is the case with other species, they are 

 often hunted, in regions where they have become too wild to be otherwise suc- 

 cessfully approached, by means of bullocks trained for the purpose. 

 Though they may have learned to^ distrust the approach of a horse, and to 

 make off with commendable discretion from what they have found to be a 

 dangerous companion of that animal, they have not yet come to the same view 

 with respect to homed cattle, and great numbers are slaughtered annually 

 by taking advantage of their ignorance. The bullock is taught to feed 

 quietly along toward a flock, the gunner meanwhile keeping himself sci'eened 

 from the birds' view by the body of the animal until within range. Though 



1 have not myself witnessed this method of hunting, I should judge the 

 gunners killed a great many geese, since they talk of its "raining geese" 

 after a double discharge of the tremendous guns they are in the habit of 

 using. Man's ingenuity overreaches any bird's sagacity, no doubt, yet the 

 very fact that the geese, which would fly from a horse, do not yet fear an 

 ox, argues for them powers of discrimination that command our admiration. 



Winter. — Dr. L. C. Sanford (1903) has given us a good account 

 of hunting white-fronted and snow geese in their winter haunts, as 

 follows : 



The large bodies of water that are found at rare intervals in northern 

 Mexico are the resort through the winter of countless numbers of geese ; not 

 the Canada goose of the East and Middle West, but the snow goose and the 

 white-fronted goose. In early October the hordes arrive, announcing their 

 coming with discordant clamor. They choose as a resting place the shallow 

 alkali waters, and as a feeding ground the neighboring corn stubble, if such 

 there be. A short distance from Minaca is one of these lakes, some 20 miles 

 in length. Ib the Mexican summer rains replenish the scanty water supply 

 left over from the spring, and October finds it a paradise for waterfowl. Shut 

 in by the rolling hills of the mesa, yellow with wavy grass, its blue surface 

 reflects a bluer sky. All around, as far as the eye can reach, are herds of 

 cattle, for some 6 miles away is a ranch ; and at this spot one fall recently 

 we stopped. Early in the morning a breakfast of tortillas and coffee was 

 served, and before it was finished a Mexican boy appeared with the horses. 

 Guns were slipped into the saddle cases. Our attendant found room for most 

 of our ammunition in his saddlebag, and we started for the lake. It was a 

 ride of about 6 miles over an open country, but the horses were fast, and in 

 less than half an hour we looked down from a knoll on the sheet of water some 



2 miles away. Along the farther shore was a bank of white, shining in the 

 light of sunrise — a solid bank of snow geese. Scattered over its surface every- 

 where were flocks of ducks and gee.se, black masses of them. "VVe hurried on. 



