The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-04-28

Development of Goose Nature
IN Fog How the Connecticut
farmer Bags His Goose - A 90
Pound Captive Goose.
From the New York Sun.
vorwich. April 22-Wild geese have
I'm fving northward in unusually large
.,,nhers for two weeks, and many of the
eorks are wonderfully big ones Three
ut focks went over this city in one
5,,. and they few so low that people in
.bo busrling streets heard their strident
-,,as amid the uproar of business traffic.
The Aorks were in the familiar arrow
.5aned form, and one was so large
i seemed to be a vast winged
barrow. blowing the vault of heaven.
,s swift as the wind, as if impelled
bvmacic. it slid along, at first a mere
,opoly coming into view low down on the
e,ufbern horizon; then, quickly growing
in web of dots, it passed overhead, and
few moments later was sliding down
the northern sky. From the moment it
onneared in the south until it vanished
beyond the northern sky line the time
was astonishingly brief, and it is not diff
fcult to estimate, approximately, its rate
of sneed. not less, probably, than eighty
or a hundred miles an hour,
Forcing along with such marvellous
sneed. a flock of wild geese may cover the
distance between the Gulf of Mexico and
Long Island sound between sunrise and
sunset of the same day In fact, scientific
sportsmen maintain that one other bird
only can hv so fast and so far without
rest and that is the Canvas-back duck
whose swiftest fight is 120 miles an hour
The mallard can do ITO in an emergency;
while the gray goose joys on all day at
100. and reels off 10 if pushed.
Then, too, he is as ambitious as the eagle
He wants none of the earth in his long
journeys, but the higher courses of the
Sky are his. In clear weather will geese
fly high. mile or more above the earth
they seem to be no bigger than string of
beads drawn across the sky. In wet
weather, especially fogs, they forsake
their lofty track and drive on across the
land not far above peoples housetops. A
wild goose has compass in his head, but
when the fog is thick he becomes be-
wildered sometimes, loses his reckoning,
Just as sailors do, and then is likely to
cut all sorts of comical didoeS. Sometimes
awhole flock of birds plump down in a
country lot anywhere, in a fog and sit
there, squawking as foolishly as lot of
tame geese, and waiting for the mist to
clear away. In such instances it is easy
for sagacious hunter TO creep up and
bag the whole covey with his gun or
knock them down with a long pole, like
ninepins. When goose does lose his
grip on direction he is hopelessly astraY.
Not long ago, in fog about as dense as
snow, flock of wild geese dropped into a
mans door yard in the outskirts of this
town, and made such a clamor that the
farmer ran out of his barn, thinking that
maybe, the beggars had come to town
With a long pole he CROPPED his way
through the thinnest part of the fog to-
ward the storm center of the noise, and
when he caught sight of the geese, dimly,
he leaped into the midst of them. Then
with his pole he stirred up fog and geese
In lively way. He got six geese. But
when he had got through plodding the
flock, the survivors were scattered all
about the eighborhood. Some of them
lodged under barns and sheds, and others
hid themselves in hooks and angles of
buildings After the fog lifted, it took the
flock several hours to get together again,
Whereupon they resumed their Journey.
In their migration north and south wild
geese follow the same route undeviat-
lngly year after year. AT shutdown they
drop into a river or pond and spend the
night there, and almost invariably it is a
pond or river they have frequented in the
same way for years. People who think it
marvellous they should be able to locate
their annual or semi-annual night resting
Places so unerringly forget that from the
lofty arial track they pursue the whole
country unfolds itself like relief map,
with its dun-COlored or smiling fields and
Glstening water courses and lakes As
the wild goose flies he overlooks not
merely farms and neighborhood, but coun-
leS and possibly states; when, for in
stance, he IS crossing Long Island sound
he may descry family the landmarks.
mammoth signboards, that shape his
course through the Bay state. No puny
mile posts are these-of what use are
SuCh things to a yoyageur who measures
mics twice as swiftly as an express train
ooes;-but majestic mountains, cleaning
rivers ana shining lakes among the hills
A hook Of wild geese easily cover 600
h-lleS a day, and when they fly at night,
as not nfrequently they do, they may
t#lrl the globe beneath them, with their
plnlons, at the speed of 200 miles in
.Wenty-tour hours. We have no example
OF loComotion, except the balloon, by
which to adiudge relatively such tenn
Iestuous fight. A wild goose on north
efn tfaVel bent, may flop out of the mo-
IdSSes OF the Gulf of Mexico some Mon
Jay morning, and journeying post haste
arrive IN New England at sunrise on
Wednesday; in two weeks he might
Iedch the pole as easily as
you please. But as a rule he loiters
oI The way. He tarries along the shore
oIJen two weeks, and sometimes a month
IN New. England. He fingers among the
INNS OF the Maine coast and in the Gulf
u ~. Lawrence, and is especially fond of
tle grand wilds of Labrador Many
T0cks do not stay in New England at all.
Lney are the vaultiRg chaps whose backs
9geln 10 rub against the celestial dome as
luey NY, and whose business, like the
olo woman" in the Melodies" may be
10 sweep the cobwebs from the sky Their
passage ticket has only one coupon, mean
aug labrador and the north, -"
mere IS nothing more weird than the
rS OF Wild geese at night. 1t is volubly
unused and clamorous, yet articulate
ana distinct, and, no matter how distant
may sound, it has something wild and
t I've mat gives the impression that it is
Lle warning harbinger of a mighty body
nurryng on, needless, irresistible, and
MYSTERIOUS. Coming suddenly into the
4sLoIound quiet of rural solitudes, faint at
jnsy ana far away, then swelling rapidly
az yoIulne and fierceness, it has the effect
VI uehacing voices in the sky or the sky
VI me hooking cries of witches ora troop
vi lemons galloping with the wind The
amor passes quickly, dying among the