3 o8 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



The black straggling procession of crows, with 

 occasional flocks of fieldfares, had not finished pass- 

 ing when the train carried me away towards Lynn, 

 skirting the green marshes or meadows sacred to the 

 wild geese. And here, before we came to the little 

 Holkham station, I had my last sight of them. 

 Looking out I spied a party of about a dozen Egyptian 

 geese, on a visit to their wild relations, from Holkham 

 Park close by, and as the train approached they 

 became alarmed and finally rose up with much 

 screaming and cackling and flew from us, showing 

 their strongly contrasted colours, black and red and 

 glistening white, to the best advantage. Now a very 

 little further on a flock of about eight hundred wild 

 geese were stationed. They were all standing with 

 heads raised to see the train pass within easy pistol 

 shot; yet in spite of all the noise and steam and 

 rushing motion, and of the outcry the semi-domestic 

 Egyptians had raised, and their flight, these wild 

 geese, the most persecuted and wariest birds in the 

 world, uttered no sound of alarm and made no 

 movement ! 



A better example of this bird's intelligence could 

 not have been witnessed; nor— from the point of 

 view of those who dream of a more varied and nobler 

 wild-bird life than we have now been reduced to in 

 England — could there have been a more perfect 

 object lesson. 



