T/ic ]Var with Nature. 81 



migratory upland geese Chloephaga magellanica 

 was dreaded. It is scarcely possible to keep them 

 from the fields when the wheat is young or just 

 beginning to sprout ; and I have frequently seen 

 flocks of these birds quietly feeding under the very 

 shadow of the fluttering scarecrows set up to 

 frighten them. They do even greater injury to the 

 pasture-lands, where they are often so numerous as 

 to denude the earth of the tender young clover, 

 thus depriving the sheep of their only food. On 

 some estates mounted boys were kept scouring the 

 plains, and driving up the flocks with loud shouts ; 

 but their labours were quite profitless ; fresh armies 

 of geese on their way north were continually pouring 

 in, making a vast camping ground of the valley, till 

 scarcely a blade of grass remained for the perishing 

 cattle. 



Viewed from a distance, in comfortable homes, 

 this contest of man with the numberless de- 

 structive forces of nature is always looked on as the 

 great drawback in the free life of the settler the 

 drop of bitter in the cup which spoils its taste. It 

 is a false notion, although it would no doubt be 

 upheld as true by most of those who are actually 

 engaged in the contest, and should know. This 

 is strange, but not unaccountable. Our feelings 

 become modified and changed altogether with 

 regard to many things as we progress in life, and 

 experience widens, but in most cases the old 

 expressions are still used. We continue to call 

 black black, because we were taught so, and have 



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