Wild Fowl and Men 267 



but a week later I flushed it accidentally from some mare's- 

 tail which lay thick in a little cove. It got up but only with 

 difficulty. This time it did not fly alone; a smaller bird, a 

 cackling goose, rose with it, and the two strangely contrast- 

 ing geese, one white-bodied except for black wing tips, and 

 the other brownish and black with white patches, flew off 

 together and landed in the open water of the bay. 



An unusual association began. These birds kept so close 

 together that, whether they were feeding, flying, landing, 

 or swimming, I never saw one without the other. Each week 

 I expected to find that they had left, for in this small area 

 geese had never remained for more than a week at a time. 

 Invariably I added them to my list of guests present. Winter 

 moved in but the birds did not move out. They faced the 

 cold weather of December when thin ice formed on all of 

 the channels. I found them side by side after our only severe 

 January snow. By this time I could approach more closely 

 than earlier in the season. They seldom flushed but simply 

 paddled off as fast as the situation demanded. Why did they 

 remain? The snow goose now flew straight, but perhaps it 

 lacked the strength for a long flight. But what held the cack- 

 ling goose? Why this curious attachment? Sympathy? Loy- 

 alty? Are the members of this group naturally associative? I 

 wonder. February came and the nearby hillsides began to 

 turn green. Then the mare's-tail popped out in places where 

 the water was shallow. Spring had come to this marsh hotel 

 and with its coming the geese had flown. 



It was not only the wounded birds that sought the pro- 

 tection of the marsh. Canadian and white-fronted geese, 

 whistling swans and other strangers, which apparently had 

 been hunted and were unable to find resting grounds free of 

 shotguns, came and fed greedily. They either ignored me or 

 they would paddle ahead of the canoe and snatch a leaf in 

 the same way that a cayuse snatches a bite here and there as 

 it follows the trail. One little flock of ruddy ducks landed so 



