THE CANADA GOOSE. 61 



tions of the Canada Goose are well known to all ob- 

 servant inhabitants ; and at the close of autumn and the 

 opening of the spring, their vast phalanxes are seen 

 wending southward and northward, with the regularity 

 of the seasons themselves, cleaving the snow-laden and 

 inisty air with the circular sweep of their heavy pinions, 

 and opposing to the currents of the atmosphere the 

 arrowy point of their wedge-like formations, while the 

 hoarse "honk" of the leading gander, answered again 

 from the rear of the battalia, calls the attention of us 

 groveling earthlings to their immeasurable march, 

 steadily sweeping onwards thousands of yards above our 

 pigmy heads. 



Of their spring flight, as they return from the mouths 

 of the Mississippi, from the great unfrozen lakes and 

 bayous of the southwest to their far northern homes, 

 thus eloquently sung their own appropriate poet laureat, 

 the well-beloved and long-lamented sportsman bai$, 

 known wheresoever the staunch dog is followed, and the 

 true trigger drawn, as J. Cypress, Jr. 



" They come, they tear the yielding air with pennon fierce and strong ; 



On clouds they leap from deep to deep, the vaulted skies along ; 



Heaven's light horse, in a column of attack upon the pole. 



"Was ever seen on ocean green, or under the blue sky, 



Such disciplined battalia as the cohort in your eye ? 



Around her ancient axis let old Terra proudly roll, 



But the rushing flight that's in your sight, is that shall wake your soul. 



