438 THE WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 



to seek their fortunes elsewhere, or desert their old companion, 

 a China Goose, who could only proceed on foot to take her 

 draught at the brook. 



We have now had them more than three years. In the 

 spring of 1846, the Goose laid some Eggs in an exposed spot, 

 and dropped one or two others here and there, which were 

 added to them, and she then sat as well as Goose could sit. 

 But owing to the persecutions of an ill-natured Canada Gan- 

 der, whose delight it was to drive her from her nest, and way- 

 lay and beat her as she was returning to it from grazing, the 

 Eggs were all addled, and the poor bird, for some time after- 

 wards, showed her dejection and disappointment. Her mate 

 did what he could to protect her from the assaults of her enemy, 

 but his inferior size and strength rendered him powerless. 

 She did not produce a second laying, as is the case with many 

 birds under similar circumstances. In the mean while, the 

 truculent Canadian had been banished ; and in the spring of 

 1847, she selected a better place for her nest. She scratched 

 a hollow in the ground, at the edge of a grass walk, under a 

 white-thorn, about eighteen inches above the surface of the 

 water. The Eggs were removed as laid, and, when she began 

 sitting, restored to her, with a bunch of straw, which she ar- 

 ranged according to her own pleasure, and with which she 

 could cover her Eggs whenever she had occasion to leave them. 

 She began sitting on the 7th of April ; on the 7th of May two 

 very pretty Goslings came forth, one of which promised to be 

 white ; the next day they were missing, and the rat-catcher 

 explained the cause of their sudden disappearance, by extract- 

 ing an enormous rat from a hole immediately under the nest. 

 The remaining Eggs proved unfertile; doubtless, from the 

 Gander being permitted to enjoy the society of the above-men- 

 tioned China Goose. After the loss of her young, and the 

 abstraction of her worthless Eggs, she still persevered in sit- 

 ting, with vain expectation, on the empty nest. To prevent 



