LIFE IIISTOPJES OF NORTH AMERICAN WIIJ^ FOWL 233 



in the hish bluffs, wIumi I saw 50 or more of thcso birds aloiii; the l)aiik preen- 

 ing their feathers. From this point I walked inland over the rongh 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 tliey would 

 stop feeding and watcli 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 liead, as if to see what sort of a strange 

 beast it was wliich tlius intruded on their domains. 



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

 serve any of them; he did, however, write down descriptions and 

 take the measurements of four of them. Although the measiu-ements 

 are rather large for miiiima^ 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 iVleutian Islands in 1911 we saw geese of 

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

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

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

 a grassy hillside; it consisted of a mass of down in a hollo^v in the 

 ground and contained 4 eggs on Jime 23. 



Mr. Turner (1886) sa^^s 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. Townsend on 

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

 "light drab" or " drab-gra}^ " dowm, mixed with bits of Avhite or 

 whitish down, numerous breast feathers and 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 until 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 Attn. The geese have exhausted, by that time, 

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

 Vacchictim that are rapidly ripening. Attn Island has a great many blue 

 foxes (V. lagopus) 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 



