WILD GEESE. 349 



nected with the sneak-box by cords, and are usually 

 placed in pairs on each side of it, as they call much bet- 

 ter when they are together than when they are isolated, 

 owing to their habit of cackling socially to one another. 



Of the different species of geese found on the Continent, 

 one of the best known and most sought is the white- 

 fronted, or laughing goose {Anser albifrons, var. gam- 

 belli), which has reddish legs and bill; alongside of bill 

 and forehead the color is white, margined behind with 

 blackish-brown; the remainder of the head and neck is 

 grayish-brown, but paler on the jugulum. The back 

 is bluish-gray; the feathers are tipped anteriorly with 

 brown; the bill and breast are grayish- white, blotched 

 with black; the anal region, flanks, under part of the tail 

 and upper coverts are white; and the greater coverts are 

 edged with white. The tail is brownish and has sixteen 

 feathers; and the axillars and under surface of the wings 

 are ashy plumbeous. This species is exceedingly numer- 

 ous during the autumn and spring, and may be found 

 all winter in some of the regions bordering the North 

 Pacific Ocean, but the majority go as far South as 

 Southern California, Mexico, and the adjoining Territo- 

 ries. They return to the North in the spring to build 

 their nests and rear their young, their favorite habitat 

 being the vast area extending from the forty-ninth to the 

 seventieth parallel. Indians say that the females lay 

 from six to a dozen eggs each, in a rude nest, which is 

 nothing more than a depression in the ground, and that 

 the goslings take to the water almost immediately after 

 leaving the shell, and keep near it until they commence 

 their southern migration, but thousands, if not millions 

 of them, never reach their winter home, as they are 

 slaughtered indiscriminately by red and white fowlers as 

 soon as they are m a fit condition for the table. They 

 move in such immense masses that they resemble huge 

 clouds; and when they alight they seem to be most at- 



