540 The Water-fowl Family 



sweeping breadth. This goose is found in vast 

 numbers in California in winter, covering much 

 the same range as the Canada goose, while his 

 u clank-a-lank " often rings from the upper sky 

 even before the deep-toned "honk" heralds the 

 approach of the time for rain. Like the larger 

 goose he fails to get as fat here as he does on the 

 corn-fields of the prairie, though the grass and 

 grain-fields on which he feeds fatten cattle and 

 horses fast enough. Yet he is a good bird in 

 spite of it and always worth shooting. But this 

 is no easy matter, for he understands the gun 

 about as well as his larger cousin, can wheel even 

 more quickly and get under way with less trouble. 

 He is a little more apt to make a mistake about 

 the range of a gun, but you can never rely on his 

 doing so. So that about the same general methods 

 must be used as with the larger goose. When 

 this goose alights on land he acts somewhat like 

 other geese, but when he alights in water his 

 style is wholly his own, and few things are more 

 amazing than the number of people who have 

 hunted geese without ever seeing this wild play. 

 His coming is told afar by clangorous notes, 

 heard even before the line of dark dots rises against 

 the sky out of the horizon. Instead of lowering 

 toward the water the geese only seem to rise 

 higher into the vault of blue. On they come, 

 perhaps two hundred strong, and a thousand feet 



