CANADA GOOSE. 
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of seeing Wild Geese feeding at the water’s edge, on the drea- 
ry coazt of Spitzbergen, in lat. 80° 21'. It is highly probable 
that they extend their migrations under the very pole itself, 
amid the silent desolation of unknown countries shut out ever 
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; Avhile the absence 
of their great destroyer man, and the splendours of a perpetual 
day, may render such regions the most suitable for their pur- 
pose. 
Having fulfilled the great law of nature, the approaching ri- 
gours of that dreary climate oblige these vast congregated flocks 
to steer for the more genial regions of the south. And no soon- 
er 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 hovel, as they are called, is occupied by only a single 
person. These attend the flight of the birds, and on their ap- 
proach 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 species of Goose 
has a different call, yet the Indians are admirable in their imi- 
tations of every one. The autumnal flight lasts from the mid- 
