The lar with Nature. SI 
migratory upland geese—Chloephaga magellanica— 
was dreaded. It is scarcely possible to keep them 
from the fields when the wheat is young or just 
beginning to sprout; and I have frequently seen 
flocks of these birds quietly feeding under the very 
shadow of the fluttering scarecrows set up to 
frighten them. They do even greater injury to the 
pasture-lands, where they are often so numerous as 
to denude the earth of the tender young clover, 
thus depriving the sheep of their only food. On 
some estates mounted boys were kept scouring the 
plains, and driving up the flocks with loud shouts ; 
but their labours were quite profitless; fresh armies 
of geese on their way north were continually pouring 
in, making a vast camping ground of the valley, till 
scarcely a blade of grass remained for the perishing 
cattle. 
Viewed from a distance, in comfortable homes, 
this contest of man with the numberless de- 
structive forces of nature is always looked on as the 
great drawback in the free life of the settler—the 
drop of bitter in the cup which spoils its taste. It 
is a false notion, although it would no doubt be 
upheld as true by most of those who are actually 
engaged in the contest, and should know. This 
is strange, but not unaccountable. Qur feelings 
become modified and changed altogether with 
regard to many things as we progress in life, and 
experience widens, but in most cases the old 
expressions are still used. We continue to call 
black black, because we were taught so, and have 
a 
