THE CANADA GOOSE. 59 



breeding-grounds lay in that country, and in the vicinity 

 of the Great Lakes. Since the period, however, when 

 those provinces have become more thickly settled, more 

 observation has been bestowed on the haunts, habits, and 

 migrations of birds ; and it is now well ascertained that, 

 although a few stragglers may breed in various seques- 

 tered spots both in the States and in the Canadas, all the 

 main hordes proceed still northward beyond the utmost 

 habitations of man, beyond the limits of the Arctic Cir- 

 cle, perhaps beyond the Pole itself, there to nestle and 

 rear the young in the untrodden solitudes, where no 

 breath of humanity has ever polluted the pure air, amid 

 the brief but delicious summer of the polar regions, 

 where they rejoice to quote the eloquent words of Mr. 

 Giraud, in his birds of Long Island where they rejoice 

 in " the absence of that great destroyer, rain, while the 

 splendors of a perpetual dry May render such regions 

 the most suitable to their purpose." 



The Canada Goose, though rare, is not unknown in 

 Northern Europe, or even in England, where it is very 

 frequently domesticated as an ornament on artificial 

 lakes, within the bounds of parks and pleasure-grounds. 

 In unusually severe winters, it is sometimes killed on the 

 sea-coasts and on the inland lakes of Scotland, and 

 the north-eastern parts of England, though not in such 

 numbers as to constitute it an object of regular pursuit. 

 Nor is its flesh there considered a luxury, whether that 

 from change of climate and diet, it really becomes rank 



