THE CANADA GOOSE. 
183 
remains the flock, but not inactive ; with care they betake themselves to the 
grassy shores, where they allay the cravings of appetite, and recruit their 
wasted strength. Soon as the early dawn lightens the surface of the deep 
they rise into the air, extend their lines, and proceed southward, until 
arriving in some place where they think they may be enabled to rest in 
security, they remain during the winter. At length, after many annoyances, 
they joyfully perceive the return of spring, and prepare to fly away from 
their greatest enemy man. 
The Canada Goose often arrives in our Western and Middle Districts as 
early as the beginning of September, and does not by any means confine itself 
to the sea-shore. Indeed, my opinion is, that for every hundred seen during 
the winter along our large bays and estuaries, as many thousands may be 
found in the interior of the country, where they frequent the large ponds, 
rivers, and wet savannahs. During my residence in the State of Kentucky, 
I never spent a winter without observing immense flocks of these birds, 
especially in the neighbourhood of Henderson, where I have killed many 
hundreds of them, as well as on the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, and in 
the neighbouring country, which abounds in ponds overgrown with grasses 
and various species of Nymphese, on the seeds of which they greedily feed. 
Indeed all the lakes situated within a few miles of the Missouri and Missis- 
sippi, or their tributaries, are still amply supplied with them from the mid- 
dle of autumn to the beginning of spring. In these places, too, I have found 
them breeding, although sparingly. It seems to me more than probable, 
that the species bred abundantly in the temperate parts of North America 
before the white population extended over them. This opinion is founded 
on the relations of many old and respectable citizens of our country, and in 
particular of General George Clark, one of the first settlers on the banks 
of the Ohio, who, at a very advanced age, assured me that, fifty years before 
the period when our conversation took place (about seventy-five years from 
the present time), wild geese were so plentiful at all seasons of the year, 
that he was in the habit of having them shot to feed his soldiers, then gar- 
risoned near Vincennes, in the present State of Indiana. My father, who 
travelled down the Ohio shortly after Braddock’s defeat, related the same 
to me ; and I, as well as many persons now residing at Louisville in Ken- 
tucky, well remember that, twenty-five or thirty years ago, it was quite easy 
to procure young Canada Geese in the ponds around. So late as 1819, I 
have met with the nests, eggs, and young of this species near Henderson. 
However, as I have already said, the greater number remove far north to 
breed. I have never heard of an instance of their breeding in the Southern 
States. Indeed so uncongenial to their constitution seems the extreme heat 
