AN APRIL HIKE 27 



wheat-stubble with its fat eating. The popular- 

 ity of the resort was attested by the presence of 

 seven or eight flocks of these big gray fellows. 

 Though it was noon-day, a half dozen, in com- 

 pany with a few pairs of mallards, were still in 

 the stubble and seemed loth to leave it. 



It is not as easy in the spring to pick out the 

 snug married couples among the geese, as with 

 the ducks. When the drake whether mallard, 

 spoonbill, pintail, or teal takes unto himself a 

 wife, he immediately cuts the company of the 

 flock, and for a few weeks, is the most devoted 

 masher alive. But his period of married life 

 never lasts longer than the honeymoon. At the 

 expiration of this supposedly joyful time, he 

 finds somehow that matrimony is not what he 

 thought it, and then divorce follows quick and 

 sure. But he never sues to secure the custody 

 of his youngsters, and invariably the little wife 

 is left in sole charge of them. Among the 

 geese, however, wife desertion and divorce seem 

 to be unknown. The gander sticks to his mate, 

 not only during the summer, but through the 

 winter as well, and the pact with them is evi- 

 dently " till death do us part." 



It was really worth while now to turn aside 



