70 Birds of Colorado 
water, sleeping on the surface in considerable numbers ; 
at daybreak they move off their feeding-grounds, and 
this is the time when the sportsman, lying hidden 
on the edge of the lake, gets his chance. They feed 
in the stubble-field in the autumn and among the young 
wheat in spring, when they do a good deal of damage. 
They nest naturally on the ground near water ; if it is 
dry, merely lining a depression in the ground with down, 
but otherwise putting together a bulky structure of 
grass or weeds. Where robbed or persecuted they often 
make use of trees, sometimes adopting the nests of 
Herons or Hawks for the purpose. The eggs, 6 to 7 in 
number, are dull white with often a faint greenish tinge, 
and measure 3°75 x 2°45. 
Hutchins’s Goose. Branta canadensis hutchinsi. 
A.O.U. Checklist no 172a—Colorado Records—Aiken 73, p. 210; 
Morrison, 89, p. 166 ; Cooke 97, p. 59. 
Description.—In every other respect resembling the Canada Goose, 
but smaller and with normally sixteen, instead of eighteen, tail-feathers. 
Length about 25-0; wing 16-0; tail 5-5; culmen 1-4; tarsus 2-7. 
Distribution. Breeding far north, along the coast of the Arctic 
Ocean, from Melville Peninsula to Alaska; south in winter to the 
southern United States west of the Mississippi and especially to 
California, 
In Colorado Hutchins’s Goose is either of rare occurrence or has 
not been distinguished from the Canada Goose. There is an example 
in the State Historical Society's collection at Denver, shot near Love- 
land, April 10th, 1898, by J. F. Campion; and Aiken many years ago 
killed one in December, near Fountain, E] Paso co. Hersey informs 
me it is not so plentiful as formerly, but that 4 bunch of seven birds 
wintered at Barr in 1908-09, in company of a flock of the Canada. 
It is a rare migrant, occasionally spending the winter. 
Cackling Goose. Branta canadensis minima. 
A.0.U. Checklist no 172c—Colorado Record—Cooke 97, p. 196; 
99, p. 187. 
Description.—Closely resembling B. canadensis but rather darker 
especially below, the cheek patches usually separated on the throat 
