CANADA GOOSE. 
287 
less than 30 degrees of latitude. In July it appears, after the 
young birds ate hatched, in the fur countries ; the parents moult ; 
and advantage being then taken of their helplessness, vast 
numbers are killed in the rivers and small lakes when thus dis- 
abled from flight. At such times, when chased by a canoe, 
and frequently obliged to dive, they soon become fatigued, and 
making for the shore in order to hide, are quickly overtaken, 
and fall an easy prey to their pursuers. 
Attached to particular places of resort at the period of 
migration, the Geese in autumn, instinctively advertised of the 
approaching winter, and of the famine which to them neces- 
sarily attends in its train, are again seen to assemble on the 
sea-coast, courting the mildness of its temperature and its 
open waters, which seem to defy the access of frost. Ihey 
thus continue to glean the marshes along the shores, till the 
increasing severity of the weather urges them to a bolder 
and more determined flight from the threatening dangers 
of their situation. They now in vast array begin to leave the 
freezing shores of Hudson Bay. Like the rest of their gab- 
bling and sagacious tribe, at the call of their momentarily 
elected leader they ascend the skies, wheeling round, as if to 
take a final leave of their natal shores, and sensible to the 
breeze, arranged in long converging lines (>), they survey 
their azure route, and instinctively follow the cheering path of 
the mid-day sun, whose feeble gleams alone offer them the 
hope of arriving in some more genial clime. The leader, 
ambitious of his temporary station, utters the cheering and 
reiterated cry ; his loud but simple clarion, answered by the 
yielding ranks, dispels the gloom of solitude through which they 
laboriously wander to uncertain and perhaps hostile lands. At 
length they come in sight of the habitations of men. Suspicious 
of these appearances, they urge their flight higher and more 
silently in the air. Bewildered by fogs, however, they often 
descend so low and honk so loud as to give sufficient notice 
of their approach to the ambitious gunner, who thus pours 
destruction among the alarmed and confused flock. They also 
hear, or think they hear, a wandering companion lost from 
