286 WILD FOWL SHOOTING. : 
sight, without their noticing his slight movements. 
The advance of civilization has great effect on Canada 
Geese. The draining of the places where they were 
wont to feed, on their flights from the Mississippi, hav- 
ing deprived them of the luxury of bulbous roots which 
they like so well as a dessert, after filling their greedy 
selves with barley, buckwheat and corn, has driven 
them to a great degree from the Mississippi Valley to 
the Missouri slope, and to the open and exposed fields 
of Nebraska and Dakota. At this late day, one is not 
warranted in expecting to find goose-shooting sufh- 
ciently good on the Mississippi as to hunt for them and 
them alone, and those that are now killed are shot by 
duck-hunters while in pursuit of that species of water- 
fowl. 
The best time to shoot them is in the spring, when 
in making their periodical migrations they stop for a 
short time for rest and food. The warm sun late in 
March, or early in April, melts the ice in little sloughs 
and bayous, swelling the rushing floods from creeks 
and ravines, all commingiing with the river. The 
river rises a little—the snow melts on the banks and 
trickles down, the ice parts from the shore, and soon 
a surging, crushing mass of ice fills the river with floes 
of all sizes and descriptions, their snowy edges peering 
up in the bright sun, while, peeping through these 
drifting cakes, occasional streaks and spots of dark blue 
can be seen, as the water ripples plainly out in view. 
At such times as these, the geese will alight on a float- 
ing cake of ice, and with an old gander on picket duty 
will sleepily and lazily drift down with the strong cur- 
rent, seeming to enjoy the warm sun, the circling 
ducks, the crushing ice, and the rattling banks, as they 
