WILD GOOSE; CANADA GOOSE 57 



ants ; over State-houses and capitols, where legislatures 

 sit ; over harbors where fleets lie at anchor ; mistaking 

 the city, perhaps, for a swamp or the edge of a lake, 

 about settling in it, not suspecting that greater geese 

 than they have settled there. 



Nov. 8, 1857. A warm, cloudy, rain-threatening 

 morning. 



About 10 A. M. a long flock of geese are going over 

 from northeast to southwest, or parallel with the general 

 direction of the coast and great mountain ranges. The 

 sonorous, quavering sounds of the geese are the voice 

 of this cloudy air, — a sound that comes from directly 

 between us and the sky, an aerial sound, and yet so 

 distinct, heavy, and sonorous, a clanking chain drawn 

 through the heavy air. I saw through my window some 

 children looking up and pointing their tiny bows into 

 the heavens, and I knew at once that the geese were in 

 the air. It is always an exciting event. The children, 

 instinctively aware of its importance, rushed into the 

 house to tell their parents. These travellers are revealed 

 to you by the upward-turned gaze of men. And though 

 these undulating lines are melting into the southwestern 

 sky, the sound comes clear and distinct to you as the 

 clank of a chain in a neighboring stithy. So they migrate, 

 not flitting from hedge to hedge, but from latitude to 

 latitude^ from State to State, steering boldly out into the 

 ocean of the air. It is remarkable how these large ob- 

 jects, so plain when your vision is rightly directed, may 

 be lost in the sky if you look away for a moment, — as 

 hard to hit as a star with a telescope. 



It is a sort of encouraging or soothing sound to as- 



