LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 233 



in the liigb bluffs, when I saw 50 or more of these birds along the bank preen- 

 ing their feathers. From this point I walked inland over the rough pasture- 

 like country toward a lake where this stream rises. Geese were seen on all 

 sides in great abundance, walking about the grassy hillsides in companies of 

 six or eight to a dozen, or flying about from one place to another. When on 

 the ground they were comparatively shy ; at about 100 yards distant they would 

 stop feeding and watch my movements ; at about 50 yards they generally took 

 wing, but instead of flying away they would circle about and fly toward me, 

 often not more than 10 feet over my head, as if to see what sort of a strange 

 beast it was which thus intruded on their domains. 



He shot nine of the birds, but unfortunately was unable to pre- 

 serve anj'^ of them; he did, however, write down descriptions and 

 take the measurements of four of them. Although the measurements 

 are rather large for tninima^ the descriptions seem to fit this form 

 rather than hutchinsi, and perhaps if we had the specimens before 

 us we might decide to refer them to the former subspecies. 



On our expedition to the xlleutian Islands in 1911 we saw^ geese of 

 this group on Kiska, Adak, Atka, and Attn Islands, but the only 

 specimen taken was a female minima shot by R. H. Beck as she flew 

 from her nest on Attu Island. The nest was located on the slope of 

 a grassy hillside; it consisted of a mass of down in a hollow in the 

 ^ound and contained 4 eggs on June 23. 



Mr. Turner (1886) says that "the clutch of eggs varies from 7 to 

 13 and are laid in a carelessly arranged nest composed of dead 

 grasses and few feathers." 



Eggs. — There are 13 sets of eggs of the cackling goose in the 

 United States National Museum, in which the numbers vary from 4 

 to 7; there are also four nests collected by C. H. Townsencl on 

 Agattu Island on June 5, 1894. The nests are large masses of 

 " light drab " or " drab-gray " down, mixed with bits of white or 

 whitish down, numerous breast feathers a.nd bits of straw. The 

 eggs are similar to those of the Canada goose, but smaller. The 

 measurements of 110 eggs, in various collections, average 72.7 by 

 48 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 85 by 55, 

 78.5 by 55.5, and 60.3 by 37 millimeters. 



Young. — Mr. Turner (1886) says: 



The young remain with the parents imtil the latter molt, by the 20th of 

 August, by which time the young are able to fly. This date witnesses a few 

 of the older young and adult males coming from the breeding grounds on the 

 Semichi Islands to the island of Attu. The geese have exhausted, by that time, 

 the food supply of that place and repair to Attu to feast on the berries of the 

 Vaccineum that are rapidly ripening. Attu Island has a great many blue 

 foxes (F. lagoptis) on it, hence is resorted to only by adult birds. The birds 

 arrive poor and lean, but by the 10th of September they abound in thousands 

 and are very fat at this time. The birds usually alight on the hillsides, and 

 quickly strip the lower areas of the berries that have ripened earlier. Toward 



