WILD GOOSE; CANADA GOOSE 51 



the stream or the meadow, three-fourths immersed and 

 with heads under water, like cutters collecting the re- 

 venue of the river hays, or like pirate crafts peculiar to 

 the stream. They come the earliest and seem to be 

 most at home. 



The water is so low that all these birds are collected 

 near the Holt. The inhabitants of the village, poultry- 

 fanciers, perchance, though they be, [know not] these 

 active and vigorous wild fowl (the sheldrakes) pursuing 

 their finny prey ceaselessly within a mile of them, in 

 March and April. Probably from the hen-yard fence 

 with a good glass you can see them at it. They are as 

 much at home on the water as the pickerel is within it. 

 Their serrated bill reminds me of a pickerel's snout. 

 You see a long row of these schooners, black above 

 with a white stripe beneath, rapidly gliding along, and 

 occasionally one rises erect on the surface and flaps 

 its wings, showing its white lower parts. They are 

 the duck most common and most identified with the 

 stream at this season. They appear to get their 

 food wholly within the water. Less like our domestic 

 ducks. 



[See also under Loon, p. 4; General and Miscella- 

 neous, pp. 408, 412.] 



WILD GOOSE ; CANADA GOOSE 



March 26, 1846. A flock of geese has just got in late, 

 now in the dark flying low over the pond. They came 

 on, indulging at last like weary travellers in complaint 

 and consolation, or like some creaking evening mail 

 late lumbering in with regular anserine clangor. I stood 



