39 



"YA HONK! YA HONK! YA HONK!" 



THE supreme indifference of the Canada Goose to the 

 cities and other slight blemishes on the continent he 

 noisily surveys in spring and fall makes his passing 

 doubly impressive. Sometimes in the multitude of 

 noises against which the sense of hearing fortifies 

 itself he brings his aligned flock quite near before 

 his advance is detected, but he holds the entranced 

 gase until he has vanished slowly into the clear sky 

 or thin horizon clouds, while the ear is still strained, 

 hungry for the faint, fading, yet penetrating resonance 

 of inspiring calls. He has grown more wary as man 

 has grown more eagerly destructive, and instead of 

 conveniently encompassing the continent and widely 

 varying his summer residence and southern tours he 

 moves determinedly in spring to the remote north, 

 nesting by the interior waters of Labrador or the 

 region west of Hudson Bay. 



These magnificent birds yield reluctantly to man's 

 encroachment. They still make bold to assert their 

 prior claim to the prairie sloughs where the plough 

 is relentlessly encroaching. In the warm, sheltered 

 mountain lakes on the Pacific slope they still take 

 advantage of the free choice of location afforded by 



