60 AMERICAN GAME. 



and unpalatable,/ or that whim and fashion in this case 

 rule the roast. 



Certain it is that, here, it is one of our best sea-shore 

 wild fowl, mejudice the very best; for its flesh is succu- 

 lent and juicy, never rank or fishy, not even sedgy, and, 

 when hung long enough in frosty weather, as tender as 

 the tenderest, even in the old ganders, which many per- 

 sons consider an abomination. 



The breeding-grounds of the Canada Goose, have never 

 as yet been, and probably never will be ascertained oth- 

 erwise than negatively, as they lie, doubtless, beyond the 

 reach of man's all-daring footstep, there being no point 

 however northerly, to which the bold discoverers of the 

 highest latitudes have penetrated, at which the Goose 

 has not been observed still wending his way northward, 

 ever northward. " They were seen by Hearne," says 

 Wilson, in his American Ornithology, " within the Arc- 

 tic Circle, and were then pursuing their way still farther 

 north. Captain Phipps speaks of seeing Wild Geese 

 feeding at the water's edge on the dreary coast of Spitz- 

 bergen, in lat. 80 27'. It is highly probable that they ex- 

 tend their migrations to the Pole itself, amid the silent 

 desolations of unknown countries, shut out since the crea- 

 tion to the prying eye of man by everlasting and insu- 

 perable barriers of ice." 



Throughout the United States and the British provinces 

 from the Straits of Bellisle and the Gut of Canso east- 

 ward, to the Osage river westward ; the biennial migra- 



