THE CANADA GOOSJ?. 397 



and I would fain hazard a conjecture, that their young may possibly 

 be captured in the place where they have been hatched, and then 

 pinioned to prevent escape. But, after all, this is mere speculation. 

 We know nothing of the habits of our birds of passage when they 

 are absent from us ; and we cannot account how it comes to pass 

 that the birds just mentioned invariably return to this country with- 

 out any perceptible increase of numbers ; or, if the original birds die 

 or are destroyed, why it is that the successors arrive in the same 

 numbers as their predecessors. 



Geese and swans may be taken without any difficulty about a 

 fortnight after the sun has entered the tropic of Cancer. At that 

 period, the large feathers of the wing drop off, and a month must 

 elapse before the new ones arrive at a state of sufficient maturity to 

 bear away the bird in flight. Two years ago, six of my Canadians 

 having determined to stay here during the summer, I watched them 

 narrowly at the time of moulting ; but they seemed so aware of their 

 helpless state, that they never strayed far enough from the water's 

 edge to allow us to place ourselves betwixt it and them. At length, 

 I effected my purpose by a stratagem, and secured them. 



There can be nothing more enlivening to rural solitude than the 

 trumpet-sounding notes of the Canada goose. They may be heard 

 here at most hours of the day, and often during the night. But 

 spring is the time at which these birds are most vociferous. Then it 

 is that they are on the wing, moving in aerial circles round the 

 mansion, now rising aloft, now dropping into the water, with such 

 notes of apparent joy and revelry, as cannot fail to attract the atten- 

 tion of those who feel an interest in contemplating Nature's wildest 

 scenery. 



Somehow or other it has unfortunately been my lot through life to 

 pay smartly for my little researches in natural history, when business 

 or inclination have brought me back to the shores of my native 

 country. The former zeal-subduing affair at Liverpool will not be 

 unknown to those who shall have read the Wanderings ; and latterly 

 at Hull, through the pig-headedness of a subaltern custom-house 

 officer, and the haughty demeanour of another in a higher station of 

 the same establishment, my ornithological views were frustrated, and, 

 I may say, I lost at one go, my time, my patience, and my money. 



