1754 ■ The Zoologist— July, 186J>. 



approach nearer and nearer the dog is allowed to show himself less 

 and less : in this manner they are easily toled within gunshot. When 

 the sportsman has no dog with him he has to act the part of one by 

 crawling in and out of the long grass on his hands and knees, and 

 sometimes this has to be repeated continuously for nearly an hour, 

 making it rather a laborious undertaking, but 1 have frequently known 

 this device succeed when others have failed. The stuffed skin of a 

 yellow fox (Vulpes fulvus) is sometimes used for toling geese, and 

 answers the purpose remarkably well, especially when the geese are 

 near the shore, by tying it lo a long stick and imitating the motions of 

 a dog retrieving the glove or slick. Foxes have frequently been ob- 

 served to practice the same device in a state of nature, and the settlers 

 who prize fur more than feathers commence toling poor Reynard 

 within range of the fatal shot, which, strange to say, considering the 

 general craftiness of the animal, is very easily done. The Canada 

 goose may often be toled from a long distance when on wing by 

 " cronking" or imitating its cry. When these geese fly either in pairs 

 or in flocks a gander invariably leads : this fact is so well known lo 

 the settlers that when firing at a pair of geese they invariably shoot at 

 the hinder bird, not only because the goose is the fattest (in the spring), 

 but because the gander will generally fly round and round its dead 

 mate for some little time : such affection but too often proves fatal, 

 especially when the shooter has the use of two barrels, but such is not 

 generally the case among the settlers, who chiefly use the old-fashioned 

 long duck guns, single barrelled, of ten or twelve bore. Ice-gazes and 

 false geese are also employed on the ice for killing these beautiful 

 birds in the spring of the year. Like the domestic goose, which has 

 been known to live upwards of a hundred years, these birds are sup- 

 posed by the settlers to live to a great age. A {qvt years ago a speci- 

 men of the Canada goose was shot at Grosswaler Bay, on the Labrador, 

 which had a thin brass collar on its leg initialed and dated just thirty 

 years previous to its capture. This species does not commence laying 

 ur.til three years old, and from examining the ovaries of several evi- 

 dently young females I found them to contain from 180 to 190 eggs, 

 which, averaging six per annum, would limit the laying period to some 

 thirty or thirty-one years ; so that, bar accidents, the birds would not 

 probably live more than forty or forty-five years. 



Brent Goose, B. brenla, Stephens. — Very common on the southern 

 and western parts of Newfoundland in its periodical migrations, but 



