THE CANADA GOOSE. 59 
breeding-grounds lay in that country, and in the vicinity 
of the Great Lakes. Since the period, however, when 
those provinces have become more thickly settled, more 
observation has been bestowed on the haunts, habits, and 
migrations of birds; and it is now well ascertained that, 
although a few stragglers may breed in various seques- 
tered spots both in the States and in the Canadas, all the 
main hordes proceed still northward beyond the utmost 
habitations of man, beyond the limits of the Arctic Cir- 
cle, perhaps beyond the Pole itself, there to nestle and 
rear the young in the untrodden solitudes, where no 
breath of humanity has ever polluted the pure air, amid 
the brief but delicious summer of the polar regions, 
where they rejoice—to quote the eloquent words of Mr. 
Giraud, in his birds of Long Island—where they rejoice 
in ‘the absence of that great destroyer, rain, while the 
splendors of a perpetual dry May render such regions 
the most suitable to their purpose.” 
The Canada Goose, though rare, is not unknown in 
Northern Europe, or even in England, -where it is very 
frequently domesticated as an ornament on artificial 
lakes, within the bounds of parks and pleasure-grounds. 
In unusually severe winters, it is sometimes killed on the 
sea-coasts and on the inland lakes of Scotland, and 
the north-eastern parts of England, though not in such 
numbers as to constitute it an object of regular pursuit. 
Nor is its flesh there considered a luxury, whether that 
from change of climate and diet, it really becomes rank 
