BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 171 



Range. — North America. Breeds from mouth of the Mackenzie east 

 probably to Coronation Gulf and Melville Island; occurs on the arctic 

 coast of northeastern Asia, but not known to breed there; winters from 

 southern British Columbia, southern Colorado, and southern Illinois 

 south to northern Lower California, central Mexico (Jalisco), Texas 

 and Louisiana, and on the Asiatic coast south to Japan; generally rare 

 in eastern United States. 



History. 



White Geese once visited the coasts of New England in 

 enormous numbers. Hearne (1795) found them the most 

 numerous of all birds that frequented the northern parts 

 of Hudson Bay, and said that some of the Indians killed 

 upwards of one hundred in a day. The early chroniclers of 

 Massachusetts mentioned White Geese with the Gray Geese, 

 and implied that they came in equal numbers. Wood (1629- 

 34) says " the second kind is a White Goose, almost as big 

 as an EngHsh tame Goose, these come in great flockes about 

 Michelmasse, sometimes there will be two or three thousand 

 in a fiocke, those continue six weekes, and so flye to the south- 

 ward returning in March and staying six weekes more, re- 

 turning againe to the Northward." From what is known of 

 the distribution of the Snow Goose it is probable that these 

 birds were mainly the Greater Snow Goose, which has a more 

 eastward range than the Snow Goose. The Snow Goose must 

 have mostly disappeared from Massachusetts during the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for Audubon (1838) 

 states that Snow Geese are rare both in Massachusetts and 

 South Carolina, although they pass over those States in con- 

 siderable numbers. De Kay (1844) speaks of them as rather 

 rare in New York. Turnbull (1869) says that they are rather 

 rare in spring and autumn in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

 Samuels (1870) states that they are rare on the New England 

 sea-coast, and Allen (1879) records them as rare winter visit- 

 ants. To-day the Snow Goose is rarely taken in Massa- 

 chusetts waters; but White Geese have been seen in recent 

 years in practically every county of the State, and still migrate 

 in small numbers along our shores or across the State. 



Mr. Sigmund Klaiber states that one or two flocks of forty 

 or fifty are seen every year in Franklin County. Mr. Robert 



