54 
CANADA GOOSE. 
countries^ shut 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 the work of 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 hovels 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 diflerent 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- 
