286 BIRDS FLYING ON APPROACH OF WINTER. 



which we shall endeavour to deal with presently, 

 entirely abandoned by almost every kind of feathered 

 fowl. When the great snows of autumn begin to fall, 

 and frost has laid its iron grasp upon the waters, fast 

 closing them for a period of many months want of 

 food, and even of water, as a general rule, forces these 

 visitors to seek refuge from the rigours of the winter, 

 in the milder climates of the south. But no sooner 

 does the sun reappear than they are back again, seek- 

 ing an entry into the northern wilds, and patiently 

 waiting for the appearance of open water; and in 

 summer time, certain land areas of the great arctic 

 wilderness would form a regular hunter's paradise 

 were it nor for the intolerable plague of mosquitoes, 

 and other flies, which infest it. The vast numbers of 

 birds of many kinds that then resort to these regions, 

 have been noted with astonishment by most travellers 

 who visit arctic lands; and among the first and 

 chiefest arrivals among the birds, we may mention 

 the arctic geese. 



On the eastern seaboard of North America many 

 of the geese winter as far south as the southern coasts 

 of the United States the Chesapeake for instance in 

 its central parts has always been a celebrated resort 

 for wild fowl of almost every kind, but with the open- 

 ing of spring the g-eese are back as far north as 

 Canada again. In New Brunswick for instance, " they 

 make their first appearance about March 17, and remain 

 till the end of May, when they fly to their northern 

 nesting grounds." * Cotemporaneously with these 

 migrations of the geese upon the eastern coasts, the 



* The Emigrant and Sportsman in Canada. Experiences of an Old 

 Settler, by John J. Rowan, 1876, pp. 112, 113. 



