146 CONSERVATION OF CANADIAN WILD LIFE 



winging their way northward through the evening sky, 

 when the stern winter is loosening its grip on land and 

 water? 



It breeds throughout the more northerly parts of Canada 

 from northern Quebec to the Pacific, chiefly within the 

 limits of tree growth, although it may be found nesting in 

 Labrador and on the treeless shores of the Hudson Bay. 

 Its breeding-range extends northward along the wooded 

 basin of the Mackenzie River. Mr. P. A. Taverner informs 

 me that the Canada goose still nests as far south as Red 

 Deer, Alta., and until recently it nested at Shoal Lake, Man. 



The remarkable manner in which the Canada goose re- 

 sponds to encouragement and protection has been strik- 

 ingly demonstrated by Mr. Jack Miner of Kingsville, Essex 

 County, Ontario, whose wild geese have made him famous 

 throughout the United States and Canada. It has been 

 my good fortune to visit Mr. Miner when his wild geese 

 were enjoying his hospitality for a few weeks on their way 

 north, and to hear from him the story of his successful ex- 

 periment of securing the confidence of so shy a game-bird. 

 After having made the reputation of being one of the great- 

 est Nimrods in Ontario, Mr. Miner became converted to the 

 idea of making friends of the creatures that formerly re- 

 garded him as one of their most dangerous enemies. Ad- 

 joining his brick-and-tile factory was a small pond, and in 

 1904 he purchased seven wild geese, clipped their wings, 

 and turned them out on the pond, which he enclosed, and 

 which, it should be noted, is next to a much-travelled public 

 highway. No wild visitor came until 1908, then on April 2 

 eleven geese stopped with him for a month on their way 

 to their northern breeding-grounds. In 1909 thirty-two 

 wild geese arrived on March 18; and on March 4, 1910, 

 wild geese began to arrive from the South until, in two weeks, 

 350 had arrived. Each year the geese were fed with corn 

 on the cob. In the following year (1911) the geese began 



