7836 



Birds, 



York Factory, and is scarcely seen in James's Bay. T have not been 

 able to ascertain whether any detachments are met with on the Atlantic 

 coast of Labrador. Do they not feed on the productions of dry downs 

 and barren and rocky country, in preference to the swamp grasses and 

 Algse ? On the Lower Columbia, and in Oregon or the Willamette 

 Yalley, they abound with other geese, sometimes in nearly equal pro- 

 portions, and the snow goose still delighting to keep the sea coast, 

 while the A. Gambelii and the gray geese take to the rivers and lakes 

 of the interior. These are seldom frozen to the southward of lati- 

 tude 45°, and very severe weather only requires from this kind of game 

 in that quarter a slight removal of one or two degrees to the south- 

 ward. 



Of all the geese I have enumerated the blue wavy (A. c&mlescens) 

 appears to be the least known in the settled and civilized portions of 

 North America. In May it frequents only James's Bay and the 

 Eastmain of Labrador, and it is probably the case that its batching- 

 ground is on the north-west extremity of that peninsula, and the 

 opposite and scarcely-known coast of Hudson's Straits. In the 

 autumn their bands, increased six or sevenfold by the young, return 

 by the same route, but where they winter is the query. I have not 

 seen them on the Columbia nor on the north-west coast. Do they 

 adopt the sea-board on a lower latitude ? Are they to be found in 

 winter retreat in Southern California and Mexico ? 



It is very difficult to form anything like an accurate idea of the 

 numbers of the various species of geese that have just been passed 

 under review. Of the quantity shot at particular points where they 

 become an article of provision we may arrive at a wide but still a 

 better estimate. Seventeen to twenty thousand geese are sometimes 

 killed by the Albany Indians in the autumn or fall of the year, and ten 

 thousand or more in the spring, making a total for these coast Crees 

 alone of at least 30,000 ; not speaking so certainly of other natives, 

 I would place the Moose Indians as killing, at all seasons, 10,000 ; 

 Rupert's River natives, 8,000; Eastmain and to the north, including 

 Esquimaux, 6,000; the Severn coast I cannot compute as yielding- 

 less than 10,000; the York Factory and Churchill Indians, with 

 Esquimaux beyond, must dispose of 10,000; making a total of geese 

 killed on the coast of 74,000. 



As many geese must die wounded, and others are got hold of by the 

 foxes and wolverines, we may safely allow the total loss to the flocks 

 while running the fiery gauntlet as equivalent to 80,000. I was at one 

 time inclined to believe that two-thirds of this number was, or might 



