THE CANADA GOOSE. 63 
season, and the gradual disappearance of the ice, afford- 
ing, meantime, sport and subsistence to the Indians, who 
paddle stealthily upon them in their birch canoes, or 
shoot them from bough-houses constructed on points 
which command their favorite feeding grounds in the 
rice lakes and flats around the mouths of the N orthern, 
the Wye, the Severn, and their neighboring affluents. 
Thence, so soon as the ice disappears, they are up and 
away, and are no more seen by the eyes of man, except 
as they sweep across the marshy plains about the dis- 
persed and distant forts of the fur companies, until in 
October, they recommence their earlier voyagings, now 
journeying southward with recruited strength and aug- 
mented numbers, for now each noisy gander and his 
mate are accompanied by two full-grown and full-feath- 
ered goslings, and tarrying scarcely for a moment on 
the great lakes, or in the inland waters, until they reach 
their favorite autumnal haunts in the great south bay of 
Long Island, and all along the inlets and lagoons of the’ 
Jersey shore, Squam Beach, and Barnegat, and the two 
Egg Harbors, where they disport themselves, and revel 
in the sheltered waters, and grow fat on the broad, ten- 
der leaves of the sea-cabbage, a common marine plant 
which grows about the stones and shells on the sea- 
beaches, and on the roots of the sedges, which they are 
constantly seen in the act of tearing up, and occasionally 
make excursions to the inlets on the beach for sand dnd 
gravel, until these inland bays are frozen over solidly 
