534 The Water-fowl Family 



the white collar of his tribe, and apparently the 

 same as the goose of the Atlantic states or the 

 prairie. Out of the far northern sky he drifted 

 upon us in long, wedge-shaped masses, crescents, 

 and converging lines, with the mellow " honk," 

 so penetrating yet so sweet, falling from almost 

 every quarter of the warm sky by day and at 

 night so thrillingly near it almost made you 

 clutch the gun in sleep. The sun rose upon 

 him standing in groups where the golden violets 

 were starring the greensward, waddling about 

 where the little baby-blue eyes were peering 

 sweetly out of the springing wild oats, or feed- 

 ing where the delicate crimson of the purslane 

 tempered the brilliant green of the malva. Here 

 comrades from the distant ponds where they had 

 spent the night were joining him, with stiff-set 

 wings lowering them down long inclines to the 

 tune of innumerable throats, and there some that 

 had fed early were rising with obstreperous 

 wing to go back to the lake for the morning. 

 And what a sight that lake often was about 

 the middle of the morning ! Even on such small 

 ponds as the laguna back of the ranch house at 

 Santa Margarita, covering scarcely eighty acres, it 

 was a sight that took me there many a day, though 

 I had so much game all the time I cared nothing 

 for shooting at any special kind. Between nine 

 and ten in the morning the geese began to swing 



