CANADA GOOSE. 277 



of seeing Wild Geese feeding at the water's edge, on the drea- 

 ry coazt of Spitzbergen, in lat. 80 27'. It is highly probable 

 that they extend their migrations under the very pole itself, 

 amid the silent desolation of unknown countries shut out ever 

 since creation from the prying eye of man by everlasting and 

 insuperable barriers of ice. That such places abound with their 

 suitable food we cannot for a moment doubt; while the absence 

 of their great destroyer man, and the splendours of a perpetual 

 day, may render such regions the most suitable for their pur- 

 pose. 



Having fulfilled the great law of nature, the approaching ri- 

 gours of that dreary climate oblige these vast congregated flocks 

 to steer for the more genial regions of the south. And no soon- 

 er do they arrive at those countries of the earth inhabited by 

 man, than carnage and slaughter is commenced on their ranks. 

 The English at Hudson's Bay, says Pennant, depend greatly 

 on geese, and in favourable years kill three or four thousand, 

 and barrel them up for use. They send out their servants as 

 well as Indians to shoot these birds on their passage. It is in 

 vain to pursue them; they therefore form a row of huts, made 

 of boughs, at musquet-shot distance from each other, and place 

 them in a line across the vast marshes of the country. Each 

 stand, or hovel, as they are called, is occupied by only a single 

 person. These attend the flight of the birds, and on their ap- 

 proach mimic their cackle so well, that the Geese will answer 

 and wheel and come nearer the stand. The sportsman keeps 

 motionless, and on his knees with his gun cocked the whole 

 time, and never fires till he has seen the eyes of the Geese. He 

 fires as they are going from him, then picks up another gun 

 that lies by him and discharges that. The Geese which he has 

 killed he sets upon sticks, as if alive, to decoy others; he also 

 makes artificial birds for the same purpose. In a good day. for 

 they fly in very uncertain and unequal numbers, a single Indian 

 will kill two hundred. Notwithstanding every species of Goose 

 has a different call, yet the Indians are admirable in their imi- 

 tations of every one. The autumnal flight lasts from the mid- 



