THE WILD GOOSE. 339 



Well, the show is over, and we might as well pull up 

 and go home. By staying here an hour longer we might 

 catch a goose or two from some stray flock, but it would 

 hardly pay. You will have all the fun you want to-mor- 

 row. We will drive over and locate that field exactly, 

 so you will have no trouble in finding it again, stop and 

 dig a pit for you, and then we will take the nearest road 

 home. It's a little hard luck to go back without a 

 feather, but if you hunt geese much, you will soon learn 

 not to mind a day like this. Remember, all is not lost. 

 What you lack in game, you have gained in knowl- 

 edge. 



If the reader has patiently followed me thus far, not 

 much can be added that will prove either interesting or 

 instructive. Possibly it would have added to the imag- 

 inative afternoon' s hunt to have capped it with a score 

 or more of geese, but I have written it from many days' 

 actual experience. 



As the season advances, along toward the middle of 

 November and Thanksgiving, the geese begin to seek the 

 corn-fields, and the hunting of them becomes more 

 tinged with disappointment than pleasure. About this 

 time they make but one trip a day for food, that in the 

 morning, and they generally remain out all day. After 

 feeding, they will seek some bare knoll or burnt piece of 

 prairie in the vicinity of the corn-field for a loafing-place 

 until again hungry. They never alight in a corn-field, 

 but always on the edge, and walk in. They prefer corn 

 planted upon sod (first breaking), in that such fields of 

 corn are usually of thin stand, the stalks short, and the 

 ears easily reached, and they can readily see around and 

 about them. At this time of year they do not decoy 

 readily, each flock seeming to prefer its own company. 

 When the geese are known to be feeding upon a certain 

 field of corn, make a blind, about fifty feet from its edge, 



