258 PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



their favourite breeding-places being upon the marshes and 

 lakes, from whence flow the rivers that enter the Polar Seas. 

 Consequently they are not to be found upon the popular 

 shooting-grounds or waters of the United States and 

 Canada until severe weather has set in over the Hudson 

 Bay territory, when they migrate in thousands south, either 

 following the coast-line or the course of rivers flowing from 

 north to south. 



On the Chesapeake Bay and the various inlets along the 

 coast of Virginia and North Carolina, I have seen them in 

 great numbers ; still the wet prairies of the west exceed all 

 other localities in the immensity of hordes that visit them. 



During the middle of the day, unless the weather has 

 suddenly changed from mild to severe cold, their pursuit 

 will be found comparatively useless ; but in the afternoon 

 and morning in early winter, or at the commencement of 

 spring, if the sportsman secrete himself in some lonely out- 

 of-the-way corn-field, he is almost certain to obtain 

 numerous shots. Still it is very rare for a day to be 

 passed on the prairies wild-fowl shooting without an 

 opportunity occurring to fire into a flock of wild geese. 



If maimed birds are kept, or the young reared in cap- 

 tivity, they answer magnificently as decoys, for not a flock 

 of wild geese or wild duck will pass within seeing or 

 hearing of them without leaving their course to join their 

 ranks. 



An old gander, as may be expected, is tough and hard, 

 but the young bird, on the contrary, is a great delicacy, 

 and well worth any amount of labour it may have cost to 

 obtain. 



