578 THE CANADA GOOSE. 



No. 279. 



CANADA GOOSE. 



A. O. U. No. 172. Branta canadensis (Linn.). 



Synonyms. — "Wii,d Goose ;" Common Wild Goose. 



Description. — Adult : Head and neck glossy black ; a large white triangular 

 patch on either cheek, the two usually confluent on throat — occasionally an indis- 

 tinct white collar at base of black ; back and wings rich grayish bro.wn ; fore-breast 

 and below lighter grayish brown, tipped with pale fulvous or grayish white ; heavier 

 totted on sides, where presenting a shingled appearance and shading into color of 

 back ; lower belly, under tail-coverts, longer upper tail-coverts and flanks well up 

 on rump, pure white ; rump and tail black ; primaries blackening at tips ; bill black ; 

 feet dusky. Immahire : Similar, but white of cheeks and throat more or less 

 mixed with blackish. Length 35.00-42.00 (889. -1066.8) ; wing 20.00 (508) ; tail 

 7.00 (177-8); bill 2.30 (58.4); tarsus 3.55 (90.2). 



Recognition Marks. — Eagle size ; black head and neck with white cheek- 

 patches, and large size distinctive. 



Nest, on the ground, on a cliff, or in a tree (a deserted Osprey's nest and the 

 like), lined with down. Eggs, 4 or 5, hght greenish buff, or bufify. white, Av. size, 

 3.52x2.30 (89.4x58.4). 



General Range. — Temperate North America, breeding in the northern United 

 States and British Provinces ; south in winter to Mexico. 



Range in Oliio. — Still tolerably common spring and fall migrant. Winters 

 sparingly in suitable localities. Formerly bred more or less throughout the state. 



HONK, honk — honk, honk! What a stirring sound is that which sum- 

 mons us from whatever task indoors, and hurries us out hatless, breathless, 

 into the crisp March air to behold a company of Wild Geese passing forward 

 into the frosty North! Honk, honk! We think madly of our gun upstairs, 

 for the Geese are provokingly near, and we hear the thrilling swish of the low- 

 sweeping wings; but we take it out in great boasts to our similarly hatless 

 neighbor, of what we could have done if the gun had been put together and 

 we had known that those foolish Geese were coming right over town. And 

 when the great birds become a row of trailing points on the northern sky, 

 a fever of strange unrest burns within our veins, and we wonder through 

 what ancestral folly our wings were clipped, and our race condemned to 

 imceasing barn-yard toil. 



For the Canada Goose there are but two points of the compass, North 

 and South ; and unlike most migrants, he does not go by the map, nor follow 

 favorite paths through the air, but flies straight over hill and dale, city and 

 hamlet alike, until the goal is reached, or until the weather discourages further 



