and the Maritime Provinces. - 4 ~ 



arrive at Cape Cod in considerable numbers, if weather permits, in March. 

 From time immemorial they have rendezvoused at Chatham bay, to wait 

 for the sun and south wind to clear the ice and open the way to their Arctic 

 breeding-grounds. By the end of May they have departed from the cape 

 and assembled on the northern and eastern shores of Prince Edward's 

 island in vast hordes. Early in June the vanguard of this immense host 

 begins to wing its way northward, not by the shore line and Labrador 

 coast, but to the eastward of Anticosti, Hudson's bay and King William's 

 land, and by the tenth of that month nearly all have departed. No human 

 being has ever set foot upon their vast polar feeding and breeding-grounds 

 save, possibly, the great aeronaut, Prof. Andree, during the present season. 

 If he has been so fortunate, I venture to predict he found a warm climate 

 in summer, and many islands with marshy shores and shoal water where 

 eel-grass and other marine vegetation, upon which they feed, is abundant. 

 They are not divers, and do not feed where food is beyond their reach 

 from the surface. It is improbable, nay, impossible for these birds to 

 dwell in a region of perpetual ice, or to lay their eggs, incubate, and rear 

 their young in such a country or climate. It is absurd to suppose 

 that the circumpolar region is capped by ice 500 feet thick, or of any 

 thickness. Here are millions of these winged voyagers who have spent 

 the summer there, and brought out their vegetarian families as witnesses 

 to testify as to the climate and its products. The process of hatching and 

 fledging the goslings sufficiently for the long journey out would require 

 about three months, and if they are not fully fledged by the third to the 

 tenth of September, when the young ice begins to make, they must be left 

 to perish. Nor can they tarry long at Prince Edward's island on the return 

 voyage. A few weeks to recuperate and they are again seen in their winter 

 quarters in Pamlico sound. The long journey from the Arctic to near the 

 tropics leaves them in poor condition, and they are not much sought at 

 this season by gunners or epicures. In fact, the birds do not touch the 

 New England shores except by stress of weather, on the return voyage, 

 but keep off and hurry on to more genial climes. It is, however, a small loss 

 to the gunner, as they are then poor and unpalatable. 



The mode of capture of these birds at Chatham is somewhat peculiar, 

 and the location is especially adapted to the mode. Chatham bay is mostly 

 shoal water. On the east are the Great Flats, bare at low tide, but over- 

 flowed at high tide to about twelve to eighteen inches. To the eastward 

 of the flats was the channel, once a ship-channel, but at that time filled 

 with eel-grass, the most attractive food for the brant. This channel was 

 protected from the ocean by Nauset high beach. In order to get at this 

 luscious food the birds, at each flood-tide, had to pass over the flats. 

 At favorable points on these flats the shooting-boxes were located 

 and the bars made. A water-tight box, say five and one half feet long by 



