THE CANADA GOOSE. 183 



remains the flock, but not inactive; with care they betake themselves to the 

 grassy shores, where they allay the cravings of appetite, and recruit their 

 wasted strength. Soon as the early dawn lightens the surface of the deep 

 they rise into the air, extend their lines, and proceed southward, until 

 arriving in some place where they think they may be enabled to rest in 

 security, they remain during the winter. At length, after many annoyances, 

 they joyfully perceive the return of spring, and prepare to fly away from 

 their greatest enemy man. 



The Canada Goose often arrives in our Western and Middle Districts as 

 early as the beginning of September, and does not by means confine itself 

 to the sea-shore. Indeed, my opinion is, that for every hundred seen during 

 the winter along our large bays and estuaries, as many thousands may be 

 found in the interior of the country, where they frequent the large ponds, 

 rivers, and wet savannahs. During my residence in the State of Kentucky, 

 I never spent a winter without observing immense flocks of these birds, 

 especially in the neighbourhood of Henderson, where I have killed many 

 hundreds of them, as well as on the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, and in 

 the neighbouring country, which abounds in ponds overgrown with grasses 

 and various species of Nympheae, on the seeds of which they greedily feed. 

 Indeed all the lakes situated within a few miles of the Missouri and Missis- 

 sippi, or their tributaries, are still amply supplied with them from the mid- 

 dle of autumn to the beginning of spring. In these places, too, I have found 

 them breeding, although sparingly. It seems to me more than probable, 

 that the species bred abundantly in the temperate parts of North America 

 before the white population extended over them. This opinion is founded 

 on the relations of many old and respectable citizens of our country, and in 

 particular of General George Clark, one of the first settlers on the banks 

 of the Ohio, who, at a very advanced age, assured me that, fifty years before 

 the period when our conversation took place (about seventy-five years from 

 the present time), wild geese were so plentiful at all seasons of the year, 

 that he was in the habit of having them shot to feed his soldiers, then gar- 

 risoned near Vincennes, in the present State of Indiana. My father, who 

 travelled down the Ohio shortly after Braddock's defeat, related the same 

 to me; and I, as well as many persons now residing at Louisville in Ken- 

 tucky, well remember that, twenty-five or thirty years ago, it was quite easy 

 to procure young Canada Geese in the ponds around. So late as 1819, I 

 have met with the nests, eggs, and young of this species near Henderson. 

 However, as I have already said, the greater number remove far north to 

 breed. I have never heard of an instance of their breeding in the Southern 

 States. Indeed, so uncongenial to their constitution seems the extreme heat 



