54 



CANADA GOOSE. 



out since creation from the prying eye of man by everlasting and 

 insuperable barriers of ice. That such places abound with their 

 suitable food we cannot for a moment doubt ; while the absence of 

 their great destroyer man, and the splendors of a perpetual day, 

 may render such regions the most suitable for their purpose. 



Having fulfilled the great law of nature, the approaching 

 rigors of that dreary climate oblige these vast congregated flocks 

 to steer for the more genial regions of the south. And no sooner 

 do they arrive at those countries of the earth inhabited by man, 

 than carnage and slaughter is commenced on their ranks. The 

 English at Hudson^ s Bay, says Pennant, depend greatly on geese, 

 and in favourable years kill three or four thousand, and barrel 

 them up for use. They send out their servants as well as Indians 

 to shoot these birds on their passage. It is in vain to pursue them; 

 they therefore form a row of huts, made of boughs, at musquet- 

 shot distance from each other, and place them in a line across the 

 vast marshes of the country. Each stand, or hovelj as they are 

 called, is occupied by only a single person. These attend the 

 flight of the birds, and on their approach mimic their cackle so 

 well, that the Geese will answer and wheel and come nearer the 

 stand. The sportsman keeps motionless, and on his knees with 

 his gun cocked the whole time, and never fires till he has seen the 

 eyes of the Geese. He fires as they are going from him, then 

 picks up another gun that lies by him and discharges that. The 

 Geese which he has killed he sets upon sticks, as if alive, to decoy 

 others ; he also makes artificial birds for the same purpose. In a 

 good day, for they fly in very uncertain and unequal numbers, a 

 single Indian will kill two hundred. Notwithstanding every spe- 

 cies of Goose has a different call, yet the Indians are admirable in 

 their imitations of every one. The autumnal flight lasts from the 

 middle of August to the middle of October; those which are taken 

 in this season, when the frosts begin, are preserved in their fea- 

 thers, and left to be frozen for the fresh provisions of the winter 



