266 
DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
in too hot a state, while you equally avoid giving it cold. Avoid rain 
or cold breezes ; and see, therefore, that the walk into which you turn 
the young goslings be sheltered from both wind and weather. The 
goslings should also be kept from water for at least a couple of days 
after hatching. If suffered too early to have free access to water, they 
are very liable to take cramp — a disease which generally produces per- 
manent lameness and deformity, and but too frequently proves fatal. 
Geese should have an inclosed court or yard, with houses in which 
they may be shut when occasion requires. It is better, however, to 
confine them as little as possible; and, by suffering them to stroll about, 
and forage for themselves, the expense of rearing them will fall com- 
paratively lightly on you, so that you will not be conscious of any out- 
lay. Geese require water, and cannot be advantageously kept when 
they cannot have access to it; still, however, we have known them to 
thrive where they had no access to any pond or river, but had only a 
small artificial pool, constructed by their owners, in which to bathe 
themselves. When geese are at all within reach of water, they will, 
when suffered, to roam at liberty, usually go in search of, and discover it, 
and will, afterward, daily resort thither. Though the birds are thus 
fond of water, all damp about their sleeping places must be scrupulously 
guarded against. Grass is as necessary to the well-being of geese as 
water; and the rankest, coarsest grasses, such as are rejected by cattle, 
constitute the goose’s delicacy. 
THE WILD GOOSE. — Canada Goose, or Cravat Goose (Anser Cana- 
densis), Neeseash and Mistehaynceseah of the Cree Indian, Wild Goose 
of the Anglo-Americans. Hearne, Wilson, Audubon, Bonaparte, and 
others have given us full accounts of the habits and manners of the 
Canada goose in a state of nature. It is the common wild goose of the 
United States, and its regular periodical migrations are the sure signals 
of returning spring, or of approaching winter. The tracts of their vast 
migratory journeys are not confined to the sea-coast or its vicinity, for, 
in their aerial voyages to and from the north, these birds pass over the 
interior on both sides of the mountains, as far west, at least, as the Osage 
River. “I have never,” says Wilson, “yet visited any quarter of the 
country where the inhabitants are not familiarly acquainted with the 
regular passing and repassing of the wild geese.” It is an opinion 
in the states that they visit the lakes to breed. Most, however, it 
would appear, wing their way much farther northward, for from the 
Canadian lakes they migrate to still higher latitudes on the setting in 
of spring. Hearne saw. them in large flocks within the arctic circle, 
pushing their way still northward. Captain Phipps observed them on 
the coast of Spitzbergen, in latitude 80° 27' N. Audubon found them 
breeding on the coast of Labrador, and states that the eggs, six or seven 
in number, of a greenish white, are deposited in a roughly made nest. 
Bonaparte states that they breed everywhere throughout the Hudson’s 
Bay territory, and have been observed in the middle of July on the 
Copper-mine river, not far from its debouchure, accompanied by their 
newly-hatched young. The cry of the species is imitated by a nasal 
repetition of the syllable wook, or, as Wilson writes it, honk. 
The destruction of the Canada geese during their migrations is enor- 
