6 CANADA GOOSE. 



have been waiting their arrival. Silent all night remains the flock, but 

 not inactive ; with care they betake themselves to the grassy shores, where 

 they allay the cravings of appetite, and recruit their wasted strength. 

 Soon as the early dawn lightens the surface of the deep they rise into the 

 air, extend their lines, and proceed southward, until arriving in some place 

 where they think they may be enabled to rest in security, they remain 

 during the winter. At length, after many annoyances, they joyfully per- 

 ceive the return of spring, and prepare to fly away from their greatest 

 enemy man. 



The Canada Goose often arrives in our Western and Middle Districts 

 as early as the beginning of September, and does not by any means confine 

 itself to the seashore. Indeed, my opinion is, that for every hundred 

 seen during the winter along our large bays and estuaries, as many thou- 

 sands may be found in the interior of the countiy, where they frequent 

 the large ponds, rivers, and wet savannahs. During my residence in the 

 State of Kentucky, I never spent a winter without observing immense 

 flocks of these birds, especially in the neighbourhood of Henderson, where 

 I have killed many hundreds of them, as well as on the Falls of the Ohio 

 at Louisville, and in the neighbouring country, which abounds in ponds 

 overgrown with grasses and various species of Nympheae, on the seeds of 

 which they greedily feed. Indeed all the lakes situated within a few miles 

 of the Missouri and Mississippi, or their tributaries, are still amply sup- 

 plied with them from the middle of autumn to the beginning of spring. 

 In these places, too, I have found them breeding, although sparingly. 

 It seems to me more than probable, that the species bred abundantly in 

 the temperate parts of North America before the white population ex- 

 tended over them. This opinion is founded on the relations of many old 

 and respectable citizens of our country, and in particular of General 

 George Clark, one of the first settlers on the banks of the Ohio, who, 

 at a very advanced age, assured me that, fifty years before the period 

 when our conversation took place (about seventy-five years from the pre- 

 sent time), wild geese were so plentiful at all seasons of the year, that he 

 was in the habit of having them shot to feed his soldiers, then garrisoned 

 near Vincennes, in the present State of Indiana. My father, who tra- 

 velled down the Ohio shortly after Bradock's defeat, related the same to 

 me ; and I, as well as many persons now residing at Louisville in Ken- 

 tucky, well remember that, twenty-five or thirty years ago, it was quite 

 easy to procure young Canada Geese in the ponds aroinid. So late as 



