216 The Water-fowl Family 



with feathers. The hind toe is without a mem- 

 branous lobe. While most of them perform long 

 migrations, breeding in the far north and reach- 

 ing temperate latitudes for the winter, one species 

 remains near Bering Sea throughout the year, 

 and some of the most peculiar forms are con- 

 fined to the southern hemisphere. The Alaskan 

 species, the emperor goose, feeds on an animal 

 diet, but most of the others on grasses, grain, or 

 water-plants, and their flesh is a valuable addition 

 to the bill of fare. Many savage races have in 

 the past depended on geese for a large portion of 

 their food. The natives of the west shore of 

 Hudson Bay, in the eighteenth century, would 

 kill each spring from five to six thousand snow 

 geese and salt them for food ; and the Eskimo, 

 living between the mouths of the Kuskokwim 

 and Yukon rivers, in Alaska, as recently as the 

 closing quarter of the last century, were accus- 

 tomed to stretch long lines of net across the 

 marshes, and then drive the moulting geese and 

 ducks into them, thus destroying thousands. 



Geese do not dive, but when feeding in water, 

 which must be shallow, stretch their long necks 

 to the bottom, elevating the rest of the body in 

 the air. A flock of brant thus changing from 

 black to white is an interesting spectacle. Many 

 species feed almost entirely on the land, and some 

 seldom visit the water. The sexes are alike in 



