BOARD OF GAME AND FISH COMMISSIONERS 
65 
Scoter and the Surf Scoter, are found only as rare stragglers. All three may re¬ 
main through the winter in open water. The Old Squaw or Long-tailed Duck, 
another sea duck, visits Lake Superior in the winter season, often in large numbers, 
and occasionally appears spring and fall elsewhere in the state. Like the Scoters 
it is not a food duck. 
All of these ducks, as the name of the group implies, secure the greater part 
of their food by diving for it in open water. Therefore they are not commonly 
found on the grass-covered lakes and sloughs that attract the surface feeding 
species. In this part of the country the food of the first four species mentioned 
above consists largely of the succulent winter buds, root-stalks and bulbs of various 
aquatic plants, notably the wild celery and the many varieties of pond-weeds 
(Potamogeton ), the latter being the submerged plants that fill the bottoms of our 
lakes and ponds in such enormous masses. The investigations of the Biological 
Survey at Washington have shown that at times 60 to 70 per cent of the food 
of the Canvas-back is derived from these sources alone and that the Redhead, 
Blue-bill and Ring-neck are not so very far behind. The fine flavor of the flesh 
of these ducks is probably due to their feeding so extensively on such food. Other 
plants are also eaten, as duckweeds, sagitaria and sedge tubers, and the seeds of 
various sedges and grasses, especially wild rice. The smaller portion of the food 
is made up of animal matter such as water insects and their larvae, snails, mus¬ 
sels, tadpoles and an occasional small fish. 
All the other ducks of this group eat, to a varying extent, the same sort of 
vegetable food, but the inferior quality of their flesh as food for man, as well as 
the results of such meager examinations as have been made thus far, seems to 
indicate that animal substances enter more largely into their diet. 
Geese. 
Four species of wild Geese are found in Minnesota, namely:—the Snow Goose, 
‘‘White Brant,” or “White Wavie the Blue Goose or “Blue Wavie;” the White- 
fronted Goose (sometimes called “Brant” and “Gray Brant”) and the Canada 
Goose or “Honker.” The Snow Geese occurring here belong almost entirely to 
the smaller form, the Lesser Snow Goose—the Greater Snow Goose being only 
a straggler from its normal range farther east. Of the Canada Goose two small 
forms belonging to the western United States occasionally stray into our state. 
They are Hutchins’s Goose (medium size) and the Cackling Goose (small), the 
latter not much larger than a Mallard. All the geese are now spring and fall 
migrants, except perhaps an occasional pair of Canada Geese which may remain 
to breed in some remote part of the state, a lonely reminder of the time when 
they were common summer residents throughout the whole of this region. The 
Snow Goose breeds on the coasts and islands of the Arctic Sea; the White-fronted 
Goose on the Barren Grounds of the lower Mackenzie and upper Yukon Rivers; 
and the Blue Goose is supposed to make its summer home in the almost inaccessible 
islands north of Ungava. 
Although but a remnant of the former vast flocks, geese still pass back and 
forth across Minnesota in considerable numbers, chiefly over the western half. 
The Canada Geese for the most part flock by themselves, by the three other species 
very commonly mingle in migration. The Snow Goose is the most abundant of the 
