CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 121 
Dall records specimens taken at Sitka. (/Velson.) Much rarer 
than the Canada Goose in the Lower Fraser valley. (Srvooks.) 
Pacific coast region, from Sitka south, in winter, to California. 
(ay 0..U.. List.) 
172¢. Cackling Goose. 
Branta canadensis minima Ripew. 1885. 
Nelson and Turner report this as being the most generally dis- 
tributed goose in Alaska. Brooks and Fannin speak of it as a 
winter resident on the coast of British Columbia. 
BREEDING Notes.—The Upper Yukon District, the Yukon 
Delta, and south to the Bristol Bay District abound with these 
birds in the breeding season. They remain in these places until 
about the first of October, while in the Aleutian Islands they 
remain until the middle of November. This bird does not winter 
in any part of Alaska. The eggs vary from seven to thirteen ; 
they are laid in a carelessly-arranged nest composed of dead 
erasses and a few feathers. The young remain with the parents 
until the latter moult by the 2cth August, by which time the 
young are able to fly. The chief food of the birds is the berries 
of the Vaccinium. (Turner.) 
The last week of May finds many of these birds depositing 
their eggs. Upon the grassy borders of ponds, in the midst of a 
bunch of grass, or ona small knoll these birds find a spot where 
they make a slight depression and perhaps line it with a scanty 
layer of grasses, after which the eggs are laid, numbering from 
five to eight. The eggs, like the birds, average smaller than 
those of other geese. As the eggs are deposited the female 
gradually lines the nest with feathers plucked from her breast 
until they rest ina bed of down. When first laid the eggs are 
white but by the time incubation begins all are soiled and dingy. 
The female usually crouches low on her nest until an intruder 
comes within one hundred yards or so, when she skulks off 
through the grass or flies silently away, close to the ground, and 
only raises a note of alarm when well away from the nest. The 
young are hatched from the middle of June until the middle of 
July. (WVelson.) 
