Ornithological biography, Vol. 4 (of 5)

by John James Audubon

The Female resembles the male, but is considerably larger.

SNOW GOOSE.

Anser hyperboreus, Bonap.
PLATE CCCLXXXI. Adult Male and Young Female.

The geographical range of the Snow Goose is very extensive. It has been observed in numerous flocks, travelling northward, by the members of the recent overland expeditions. On the other hand, I have found it in the Texas, and it is very abundant on the Columbia River, together with Hutchins’s Goose. In the latter part of autumn, and during winter, I have met with it in every part of the United States that I have visited.

While residing at Henderson on the Ohio, I never failed to watch the arrival of this and other species in the ponds of the neighbourhood, and generally found the young Snow Geese to make their appearance in the beginning of October, and the adult or white birds about a fortnight later. In like manner, when migrating northward, although the young and the adult birds set out at the same time, they travel in separate flocks, and, according to Captain Sir George Back, continue to do so even when proceeding to the higher northern latitudes of our continent. It is not less curious that, during the whole of the winter, these Geese remain equally divided, even if found in the same localities; and although young and old are often seen to repose on the same sand-bar, the flocks keep at as great a distance as possible.

The Snow Goose in the grey state of its plumage is very abundant in winter, about the mouths of the Mississippi, as well as on all the muddy and grassy shores of the bays and inlets of the Gulf of Mexico, as far as the Texas, and probably still farther to the south-west. During the rainy season, it betakes itself to the large prairies of Attacapas and Oppellousas, and there young and adult procure their food together, along with several species of Ducks, Herons, and Cranes, feeding, like the latter, on the roots of plants, and nibbling the grasses sideways, in the manner of the Common Tame Goose. In Louisiana I have not unfrequently seen the adult birds feeding in wheat fields, when they pluck up the plants entire.

When the young Snow Geese first arrive in Kentucky, about Henderson for instance, they are unsuspicious, and therefore easily procured. In a half-dry half-wet pond, running across a large tract of land, on the other side of the river, in the State of Indiana, and which was once my property, I was in the habit of shooting six or seven of a-day. This, however, rendered the rest so wild, that the cunning of any “Red Skin” might have been exercised without success upon them; and I was sorry to find that they had the power of communicating their sense of danger to the other flocks which arrived. On varying my operations however, and persevering for some time, I found that even the wildest of them now and then suffered; for having taken it into my head to catch them in large traps, I tried this method, and several were procured before the rest had learned to seize the tempting bait in a judicious manner.

The Snow Goose affords good eating when young and fat; but the old Ganders are tough and stringy. Those that are procured along the sea-shores, as they feed on shell-fish, fry and marine plants, have a rank taste, which, however suited to the palate of the epicure, I never could relish.

The flight of this species is strong and steady, and its migrations over the United States are performed at a considerable elevation, by regular flappings of the wings, and a disposition into lines similar to that of other Geese. It walks well, and with rather elevated steps; but on land its appearance is not so graceful as that of our common Canada Goose. Whilst with us they are much more silent than any other of our species, rarely emitting any cries unless when pursued on being wounded. They swim buoyantly, and, when pressed, with speed. When attacked by the White-headed Eagle, or any other rapacious bird, they dive well for a short space. At the least appearance of danger, when they are on land, they at once come close together, shake their heads and necks, move off in a contrary direction, very soon take to wing, and fly to a considerable distance, but often return after a time.

I am unable to inform you at what age the Snow Goose attains its pure white plumage, as I have found that a judgment formed from individuals kept in confinement is not to be depended upon. In one instance at least, a friend of mine who had kept a bird of this species four years, wrote to me that he was despairing of ever seeing it become pure white. Two years after, he sent me much the same message; but, at the commencement of next spring, the Goose was a Snow Goose, and the change had taken place in less than a month.