214 GAME BIEDS OF CALIFOENIA 



and that the bulbous roots and soft succulent culms of aquatic plants 

 are also eaten. The depredations of this and other geese in grain fields 

 in California until very recently has prevented the placing of a closed 

 season on these birds. In the north, their food in the summer consists 

 of rushes and insects, and in the autumn, of berries particularly 

 those of Empetrum nigrum (Baird, Brewer and Ridgway, 1884, I, 

 p. 441). 



In former years in the far north this species during the fall 

 migration was killed and salted in great numbers for winter consump- 

 tion, it being almost universally regarded as good eating. It has 

 always been the commonest goose on the markets in California. 

 Whether this is because it is more abundant, more easily decoyed, or 

 because it is most desirable for the table is not known. During the 

 season 1895-96, 10,251 "white" geese were sold in the markets of 

 San Francisco and Los Angeles (Calif. Fish Comm., 1896, p. 41). A 

 total of 3,649 were handled by one transfer company alone in San 

 Francisco, in the season of 1906-07, and 3,800 similarly in 1910-11. 

 In the season of 1910-11 the markets in San Francisco paid one to 

 three dollars a dozen for them. During the season of 1913-14, they 

 could be purchased regularly for seventy-five cents a pair retail. The 

 young of this species are considered very good eating in spite of the 

 fact that their meat is comparatively dry and dark and of a rather 

 strong flavor. But our impression is that the other species of geese 

 are held in somewhat greater esteem for table use. 



There has been a more conspicuous decrease in the numbers of 

 geese than in any other game birds in the state. Many observers 

 testify that there is only one goose now for each hundred that visited 

 the state twenty years ago, and some persons aver that in certain 

 localities there is not more than one to every thousand which formerly 

 occurred here. Not only have these birds been slaughtered for the 

 market, but gangs of men have been paid to destroy them where they 

 were feeding in grain fields. Until 1915 they were afforded no pro- 

 tection whatever and as a natural result their ranks have been so 

 often decimated that, comparatively speaking, only a remnant now 

 remains (see pp. 7-12). 



In former years, when passing through the Sacramento or San 

 Joaquin valleys by train, great flocks of white geese in company with 

 other, dark-colored species were often to be seen settling on the grain 

 fields or pasture lands almost within gunshot of the cars. 



The days are past and gone when a man has to drive geese from 

 his grain field. In many places where formerly the ground was so 

 covered with white geese as to look snow clad, not a single goose is 

 now to be observed feeding and but few flying overhead. In spite 

 of the extreme shyness and watchfulness of these geese, the ingenuity 



