CANADA GOOSE. 59 



ping of the wings, and beating of the water with the feet, 

 rises in the air and takes a direct course for the winter 

 home. Led by some experienced gander, who has also 

 the extra duty of cleaving the way through the air, which 

 becomes at times most fatiguing, the birds are strung 

 out in a lengthened V-shaped line, each one protected 

 to a certain extent against the wind, if adverse, by the 

 one in front, and with slow, heavy beating of the wings, 

 the flock speeds on by day and night with great rapidity. 



" Then stood we shivering in the night-air cold, 

 And heard a sound as if a chariot rolled 

 Groaning adown the heavens; and lo! o'erhead, 

 Twice, thrice the wild geese cried; then on they sped, 

 O'er field and wood and bay, toward Southern seas; 

 So low they flew that on the forest trees 

 Their strong wind splashed a spray of moonlight white; 

 So straight they flew, so fast their steady flight. 

 True as an arrow they sailed down the night; 

 Like lights blown out they vanished from the sight." 



There is nothing to intercept their course; in the great 

 fields of air through which they move, there are no 

 bounds or limits, nor barriers of any kind; the route is 

 free and open. At least so it appears to us as we watch 

 them steering across the blue vault of heaven, sending 

 down at intervals from out the sky a note of recognition 

 to the inhabitants of earth. 



But all is not so free and without restraint, even to the 

 voyagers of the trackless wastes of the airy regions, for 

 in their path rises occasionally a fleecy mist that obscures 

 all landmarks, and although it might be supposed that 

 birds like these, whose instincts are so keen and unerr- 

 ing, would never lose the points of the compass, yet 

 when shut in by a fog or encompassed by a storm of 

 snow, the Geese become confused, seem to lose all knowl- 



