62 AMERICAN GAME. 



" Hawnk ! honk ! and for'ard to the nor'ard, is the trumpet tone, 



What Goose can lag, or feather flag, or break the goodly cone 



Hawnk ! onward to the cool blue lakes where lie our safe love-bowers ; 



No stop, no drop of ocean brine, near stool or hassock hoary, 



Our traveling watchword is ' our mate,s, our goslings and our glory /' 



Symsonia and Labrador for us are crowned with flowers, 



And not a breast on wave shall rest, until that heaven is ours. 



Hawnk ! Hawnk ! E e Hawnk !" 



And this, but with the smallest tincture of poetical 

 extravagance and license, is a fair and correct picture of 

 their vernal northward march ; for although they do in 

 truth pay us of the midland seaboards a short visit so 

 soon as our sea bays are clear of ice, and do occasionally 

 " stop," and at great peril to themselves, " drop by stool 

 or hassock hoary," still their spring sojourn with us is 

 of short duration. Early in April they collect them- 

 selves in vast flocks, soar skyward, and breaking into 

 wedge-shaped phalanxes, headed by the strongest gan- 

 ders, which are hourly relieved by their comrades, so 

 that each of the males in his turn takes his share of 

 arduous toil of breasting foremost the resistance of the 

 atmosphere, and opening the path for his followers. 



Little stint they of force, little stay make they, unless 

 for necessary food and rest by night, or when bewildered 

 by dense fogs and unable therefore to steer northward, 

 more truly than the needle to the pole, until they reach 

 the northern shores of Lake Huron and the waters of 

 the Great Georgian Bay, where they remain for some 

 time, longer or shorter, according to the state of the 



