BRITISH BIRDS. 247 



whence some flocks of them migrate a long way 

 southward in the winter. Latham says, " Geese 

 seem to be general inhabitants of the globe, are 

 met with from Lapland to the Cape of Good Hope, 

 are frequent in Arabia, Persia, and China, as 

 well as indigenous to Japan, and on the American 

 continent from Hudson's Bay to South Carolina. 

 Our voyagers have met with them in the Straits of 

 Magellan, Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands, 

 Terra del Fuego, and New Holland." There can 

 be little doubt about the territories assigned to 

 them for their summer residences and breeding 

 places; the lakes, swamps, and dreary morasses of 

 Siberia, Lapland, Iceland, and the unfrequented or 

 unknown northern regions of America seem set 

 apart for that purpose, where, with multitudes of 

 other kinds, in undisturbed security, they rear 

 their young, and are amply provided with a variety 

 of food, a large portion of which must consist of 

 the larvae of gnats, which swarm in those parts, 

 and the myriads of insects that are fostered by the 

 unsetting sun. Pennant says, that Wild Geese 

 appear in Hudson's Bay early in May, as soon as 

 the ice disappears, collect in flocks of twenty or 

 thirty, stay about three weeks, then separate in 

 pairs, and take off to breed ; that about the middle 

 of August they return to the marshes with their 

 young, and continue there till September. Some of 

 them are caught and brought alive to the factories, 

 where they are fed with corn, and thrive greatly. 



These birds arrive in the fen counties in the 

 autumn, and take their departure in May. They 

 are said to alight in the corn fields, and to feed 

 much upon the green wheat, while they remain in 



