272 



Bird - Lore 



Along our eastern seaboard, many Canada Geese are reared as domestic 

 birds. The original parents of these flocks were wounded in winter shooting 

 and from the same source additions to the flocks are made from time to time. 

 From these decoys we learn many interesting characteristics of this great bird 

 of passage. The writer knew one wild gander in North Carolina whose his- 

 tory as locally recounted was as follows: Wing-tipped by a shot long ago he 

 was put in the Goose-pen with other decoys. His wing healed, but he could 

 never fly. He moved about with the other Geese but paid no particular at- 

 tention to any of them for thirty years. Then he mated, and when I last saw 

 him, he had been a faithful mate, winter and summer, for thirty-two years. 



It is often difficult to get these decoys to select mates and as indication of 





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■), 



CANAD.-^ GEESE ATTRACTED TO A SMALL POND IN ONTARIO, CANADA, B\ Ml.A.N^ 



OF CORN 

 Birds fed and cared for by Jack Minor 



the value of mated Geese I may state that the writer remembers the time, only 

 a few years back, when in North Carolina a pair of mated decoys would readily 

 sell for $5, while an unmated Goose was worth only from 75 cents to Si. A 

 man who had a 'stool' of two dozen Geese thought himself fortunate if he had 

 as many as four or five pairs that were mated. 



Canada Geese are supposed to keep their mates for life. However, it is but 

 natural that, with the recurrence of spring, evidences of solicitation on the part 

 of the gander should be most pronounced. At this season he goes through many 

 weird contortions of his neck, wings, and body, either with the evident in- 

 tention of charming his mate or warning away any other lovelorn gander who 



