The Lesser Snow Goose 



nature's children, was quick to "improve" upon native methods. Stalking 

 horses, or stalking heifers, were trained, and from such vantage 

 points the hunters mowed down the luckless birds in thousands. Agri- 

 cultural demands, soon arising, set a price on the heads of these 

 grass-eating fowls and they were slaughtered by thousands beyond 

 any possible demand of the market, and simply that the fields of growing 

 wheat might be rid of their presence. 



LESSER SNOW GEESE IN CAPTIVITY 



FLOCK ALSO CONTAINS ROSS SNOW, WHITE-FRONTED, AND HUTCHINS GEESE 



Photo by F. H. Holmes 



Snow Geese still visit California by thousands. They have no 

 other place to go. A newcomer, visiting Los Banos or the fields about 

 Sacramento, and ignorant of former conditions, would still get the im- 

 pression of abundance. Latterly the birds have taken to wintering on 

 the island of Santa Rosa, and there may be as high as 30,000 or 40,000 

 birds there at a time. But these are all there are; and the teeming North 

 has been bereft of her snow children. One of the most sublime spectacles 

 of fecundity in existence, the breeding grounds of the Arctic, has been 



1847 



