OTHER BIRDS. 241 



come to the plains in the early spring, rear broods, and 

 return in the fall to a more congenial clime. 



Of these the c Brandt goose ' is the largest. They 

 prefer the more northerly of the plains streams, never 

 breeding, so far as I know, south of about latitude 42 N. 



Beaver dams are seldom found on streams which are 

 subject to high water, and are always in muddy places, 

 the beaver not ' founding his home upon a rock.' The 

 black water saturates the adjacent soil, making all approach 

 exceedingly difficult, except to webbed feet, and giving 

 rise to dense thickets of willow and other water-loving 

 bushes. 



Along streams thus secure from freshets and prowling 

 animals the Brandt makes a nest of small sticks, grass, 

 leaves, and feathers, on some secluded point only a few 

 inches above the water. On streams liable to spring rises 

 and otherwise unprotected, she builds a huge structure of 

 sticks, some of them apparently too large for her to carry, 

 in some convenient fork of a tree, twenty, thirty, or even 

 more feet above the ground, and not unfrequently a 

 hundred feet from the water. This outwardly rough 

 affair is nicely lined with leaves, grass, and feathers, 

 making a superb bed for the eggs. 



The North Platte Eiver was in 1868 a favourite resort 

 of these birds, and in the vicinity of what is now Fort 

 Fred Steele there were numbers of such nests, some of 

 them high up in the lofty cotton-woods quite forty feet 

 above the ground. I one day found a nest in the hollow 

 upper end of a huge cotton-wood, the top of which had 

 been broken off by the wind. It was just such a cavity 

 (only larger) as would have been selected by a wood duck. 

 There were eight eggs. I broke one to test their freshness, 

 but the little goose was already formed. The eggs are 

 not quite so large as those of the domestic goose, but when 

 fresh are more delicate and of a richer flavour. They are 

 eagerly sought after as a most welcome and delicious 

 addition to the ordinary breakfast fare of the plains. 



R 



