THE CANADA GOOSE. 63 



season, and the gradual disappearance of the ice, afford- 

 ing, meantime, sport and subsistence to the Indians, who 

 paddle stealthily upon them in their birch canoes, or 

 shoot them from bough-houses constructed on points 

 which command their favorite feeding grounds in the 

 rice lakes and flats around the mouths of the Northern, 

 the Wye, the Severn, and their neighboring affluents. 



Thence, so soon as the ice disappears, they are up and 

 away, and are no more seen by the eyes of man, except 

 as they sweep across the marshy plains about the dis- 

 persed and distant forts of the fur companies, until in 

 October, they recommence their earlier voyagings, now 

 journeying southward with recruited strength and aug- 

 mented numbers, for now each noisy gander and his 

 mate are accompanied by two full-grown and full-feath- 

 ered goslings, and tarrying scarcely for a moment on 

 the great lakes, or in the inland waters, until they reach 

 their favorite autumnal haunts in the great south bay of 

 Long Island, and all along the inlets and lagoons of the 

 Jersey shore, Squam Beach, and Barnegat, and the two 

 Egg Harbors, where they disport themselves, and revel 

 in the sheltered waters, and grow fat on the broad, ten- 

 der leaves of the sea-cabbage, a common marine plant 

 which grows about the stones and shells on the sea- 

 beaches, and on the roots of the sedges, which they are 

 constantly seen in the act of tearing up, and occasionally 

 make excursions to the inlets on the beach for sand and 

 gravel, until these inland bays are frozen over solidly 



