cared for them, and will continue to keep them 

 together as a family until the next spring. 



No phase of the life of these great birds is so 

 pleasing as the thought of this family life— 

 gander, goose, and goslings a united family even 

 while mingling as part of some numerous flock. 

 Every wedge of wild geese that flies trumpeting 

 overhead in the autumn nights is either a family 

 or a neighborhood of families led by some strong 

 old gander. 



The great event in the goose calendar is this 

 autumn flight. The life of all the rest of the 

 year seems incidental to this. Need for food and 

 escape from the deadly cold were doubtless the 

 first causes of the migration, but they are sec- 

 ondary now. The flight for its own sake seems 

 to have become a fever in their bones. For 

 weeks previous to the departure, restlessness and 

 strange desires possess the birds. The flight— 

 mile-high, for a thousand miles ; ordered, thrill- 

 ing ; past changing belts of landscape to a new 

 world !— such a flight is the fulfilment of life. 



The love of it is far more than the desire for 

 food. Next to the want of mate and offspring 

 is the need for this flight. It is not a desire of 

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