53 2 The Water-fowl Family 



II 



THE GEESE 



No one who once hunted the wild goose ever 

 again used the expression " tame as a goose." If 

 there is any bird for which the hunter has an 

 unbounded respect, it is the goose, for in pro- 

 portion to its numbers he can generally bag 

 less than of almost any other bird except the 

 whooping crane and the sand-hill crane. And 

 few things so amaze even the expert on other 

 birds as to lie hidden on some fine flyway with 

 an average of a hundred geese a minute passing 

 for two or three hours, and see every one that 

 rises over the horizon headed right for his gun 

 sheer off just enough to make it hopeless about 

 the instant he is ready to pull the trigger. He 

 changes his opinion about the goose being tame, 

 clumsy, or slow, and concludes he is quite worthy 

 of his best efforts. 



Both by nature and art this coast seems spe- 

 cially made for the goose. With endless breeding- 

 grounds in the far North, and in the South vast 

 sweeps of plain and slope carpeted soon after the 

 first good rains with burr-clover and alfileria that 

 make the richest of feed, with ponds and lagoons 

 shimmering in the bright sun of winter in which 



