THE OOLOGIST 



172 Canada Goose, Branta canadensis 

 canadensis. 



By all odds the most splendid of all 

 geese. This stately bird is as wise as 

 he is big, and as sensible as any bird 

 can be. When he must look out for 

 himself in the world, he is the hard- 

 est of all geese to kill. When he is 

 in confinement or domesticated, he 

 simply settles down to a quiet life and 

 proceeds to boss all other poultry with 

 which he comes in contact. The only 

 bird we have ever seen run or best a 

 Canada Goose upon our grounds, is 

 the Muscovy duck, and that but sel- 

 dom. 



The interior of North America is 

 the natural range for this bird. It 

 breeds all the way from Northern Sas- 

 katchewan to Southern Iowa, or did in 

 years past. 



When in Saskatchewan in June, 

 1909, we found seven nests of the Can- 

 ada goose, containing from five to 

 seven eggs, all of which were too far 

 incubated to be interfered with, and 

 we left them with two exceptions; 

 and one of those exceptions may now 



be seen in the Field Museum of Nat- 

 ural History, in the shape of a nest 

 full of just hatched downy birds. 



These nests were uniformly built 

 on. small grassy islands, but slightly 

 above the surface of the surrounding 

 waters, and were made by piling up 

 grasses, weeds and such materials to 

 a height of a foot or slightly more, and 

 then depressing a hollow in the top, 

 which was lined with down from the 

 parent bird. These birds are close 

 sitters, frequently permitting us to 

 come within a few feet of them, in 

 one instance remaining on the nest un- 

 til we set and adjusted a camera and 

 made two exposures, at a distance of 

 not over fifty feet. 



Some nests were situated by them- 

 selves; others were surrounded by 

 various species of duck's nests; still 

 others in the midst of very large 

 breeding colonies of terns and ring- 

 billed gulls, and in one case, a gull's 

 nest was built against the base of the 

 nest of the goose so that the eggs of 

 the two species were not over a foot 

 apart. 



