NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS, 



99 



172. NEST AND EGGS OF THE CANADA GOOSE. (Photo, by W. Raine.) 



they were six days old, and this was in early morning and evening, at which timea 

 the old birds would float off from their island with their well-known honk, the 

 young following single file behind them, feeding at the extreme end of the lake. 

 This was kept up until August, when the young could fly and take care of themselves. 

 The eggs were always seven and never more than eight in number. What is most 

 remarkable about these birds is that they would go south every fall and return 

 every spring; their number always being diminished by the time they returned; 

 some probably being killed by sportsmen. Mr. Vergon says the geese often strayed 

 away from "home" as far as ten and fifteen miles on the Olentangy River and other 

 waters in the neighborhood. He fed them on a high ridge near the lake and on this 

 ridge they were always first seen in spring when they returned. Mr. Vernon says he 

 thinks they always came at night and is very sure they always departed in autumn 

 at night. While the flocks that departed in the fall and returned in the spring had 

 often been diminished in numbers, yet as many as twenty-two new ones came with 

 them and stayed at the lake. Out of thirty that departed the fall of 1886 only three 

 returned in the spring. The birds were very much afraid of strangers, but with 

 Mr. Vergon they were very familiar, allowing him to handle and caress them at 

 pleasure. Dr. Merrill found this species breeding on the Upper Missouri, Yellow- 

 stone, and Big Horn Rivers, where their favorite nesting sites were on the numerous 

 low sandy islands in these rivers, covered in the higher parts with a growth of young 

 willows. Their nests were simply a hollow in the sand, around which was placed a 

 few sticks and twigs, and the eggs lay on a layer of gray down. Nests were found 

 on the tops of broken trunks of trees; one on a rocky ledge three hundred yards from 

 the river; another was made on a pile of brush that had collected in the top of a 

 fallen tree that had floated down and lodged near the middle of the river; some nests 



