Now I will not say that a crow or blackbird will smell cold birds’-eggs, but if the eggs are warm and sweaty I know that these cannibal birds will locate the nest by the use of their nostrils. “Well,” you say, “that cannot be; there was a crow came right up to the barn while I was in there.” Yes, but remember he was accustomed to you being around there. Go to the woods where this same crow has been shot at, and see how close you will get to him if the wind is in his favor. The great trouble with the majority of us human beings is that we are too slow to observe.

I once saw a man run bang into a stone wall; his excuse was that he did not see it. When I was a boy in Ohio I went with an Englishman to dig out a rabbit. When we got near the end of the hole Old Jack, as we called him, dropped on his side and ran his arm right in, clear up to his shoulder. I was of course peeking very closely, to see the rabbit, but the instant I saw him pulling out black and white fur I retreated backwards over a pile of loose sand, looking back just in time to see Old Jack get it right in the eyes. And say! he came bounding out of that cavity without being urged, snorting, sneezing and coughing, and with his long hair thoroughly powdered with yellow sand—and something worse. He went here and there and all over at the same moment, trying to gather all the snow in the country in each hand to wash his eyes out with. I was of course all alone and had to conceal my joy. My joy however did not last long, for this poor fellow nearly strangled to death and it was fully fifteen minutes before he could speak; but finally, looking up at me with his eyes and face all apparently washed into one red blister, he chokingly said, “Jack, Hi didn’t smell the beggar till hafter Hi ’ad ’im by the toyle.”

CHAPTER XXIII.
The Canada Goose.

Now I have told you that by protecting the one swallow’s nest at our tile shed there were twenty-five nests the fifth year: and how the sweet bluebird became so well acquainted with the members of our family as to permit us to remove the roof of her house while she would sit there within eight inches of our eyebrows, with her beautiful head turned sidewise looking us square in the eyes, and then permit us to put the cover back on, and she would not fly out. I have explained how the robins fairly swarmed around our home when there was neither shrubbery nor fruit to attract them there, and how the purple martins folded their wings and came down out of the heavens, warbling their songs as they descended, the very first day we had their home erected. But these truths are simple compared with the facts contained in this chapter.

Some one has said “the silly old goose.” This, to my mind, is one of the many demonstrations of how a man’s mouth can go off empty. For the facts are that our Canada goose has a great amount of knowledge, and many qualifications that the human race could well afford to profit by; and although I was born under the protection of the American eagle’s wings, and respect him in every way, never shooting one in my life (though I scared one to death!) yet when you speak of our Canada goose, this bird is one of the most intelligent, self-sacrificing creatures on earth, and as for purity of character he has gotten the human race backed right off the boulevard into the slums, and no person on earth can study him without profiting by it. Personally, there has been many a time during the last ten years of my life when I have felt like raising my hat to the clean, gentlemanly principles exposed by one of these old ganders.

Now the question is, how did I become so well acquainted with them?

Well, about thirty years ago a few wild geese (as we call them) were alighting on a sort of prairie then known as Cottam Plains, which is about four miles due north of my home. As I was a noted hunter several persons spoke to me about going out to shoot these geese, as no one had apparently been able to kill one. At length one hunter came to me in dead earnest. “Jack,” he said, “you want to get out there and try them. They come nearly every day. They are old lunkers; I believe the old ganders will weigh twenty-five pounds.” I enquired how many there were and he said, “Fifteen; seven in one flock and eight in another.” As I stood, thinking it over, I said to this man. “If one flock is there, will the other bunch go and alight with them?” “Yes,” he replied in a loud voice; “every time.”

THE CANADA GOOSE
To get the effect of this picture, hold the book above your head, as the Goose was, above mine, when I took the photograph.

Well that day I went home, took the axe and chopped out the bodies of three wooden wild geese decoys; then I used a drawing-knife for the rest of the work; finally I had three geese standing on one leg in our back yard—one leg each of course. And I had everybody who saw them laughing at me. What color should I paint them, was the puzzle. I had never been close enough to a wild goose to know anything about his color; I couldn’t tell from hearing their faint “Honk!” I finally decided to paint their breasts light and the rest a slate color. The neighbors still kept laughing. Then when there were no persons around I would practise the “Honk!” till the echoes from the buildings sounded something like it.