Wild Geese 167 



washed with violet, pinks turn to h'\-id purples, vermilion to dusky 

 red, yellow and orange last a little better, but eventually assume a 

 neutral horn-colour. 



I shot a fine adult male Shell-duck one morning at about 10 

 o'clock. The bill of this bird, with its basal knob, was the most 

 vivid scarlet-vermilion, the legs and the feet a bright rosy pink. 

 I was waiting on a reef of rocks that ran out to sea and was onh" 

 exposed at half-tide. The plan was to remain there shooting at 

 the Ducks that flighted by until driven off by the rising water. I 

 laid the bird down behind the rock a few feet away, so as to be out of 

 sight of any passing Duck, and resumed my watch. Presently I 

 was flooded out of my place by the tide, and had to gather up the 

 bag and make for the shore. When I picked up the Shell-duck the 

 changes were so astonishing, that I could hardly believe it was the 

 same bird. The splendid \'ermilion of the bill had changed to a dusky 

 brick-red, the rosy legs and feet to the colour of dead flesh. All 

 this took place in two hours or less ! 



In a recent visit to the outer Hebrides, I took with me a large 

 stock of painting materials, with the special object of trying to secure 

 accurate colour-notes of the soft parts of the Ducks and Geese. 

 I can neither paint nor draw, but I hoped to succeed in mixing 

 colours which would furnish a true and permanent record of the bill, 

 while still in a perfectly fresh state. I had not reckoned, however, 

 with the extraordinarily fugitive character of these delicate tints. 

 In the short winter days, it was necessary to leave the house before 

 sun-rise, and the return was long after dark. So that I was unable 

 to utilize the fresh Geese I brought in, shot, it may be, only an hour 

 before the evening flight. By the following morning, assuming that 

 I did not start out early, the bills had changed so much as to be 

 scarcelv recognisable, and quite valueless for keeping colour-records. 



In desperation, I finally took a few coloured chalks and a sketch- 

 book out in my pocket, and made colour-notes on the spot, 

 immediatelv the bird was shot. It is from these notes that Mr. 

 Bayzand has coloured the four diagrams of the bills of the Grey-lag 

 and White-fronted Geese, as they appear to me when still perfectly 

 fresh. The diagrams agree to a large extent with some of the written 

 descriptions of authors, but are quite at variance with any coloured 

 plate with which I am acquainted. 



Wild Geese do not reach the artist's hands while the colours 

 are still brilliant and unchanged ; he is, therefore, forced to paint 

 the colour of the bills from such indications as the dead bill — dead 

 possibh' two or three days, probably two or three months, and dried 

 and shrivelled — affords, assisted by any written notes the collector 

 may have attached to the bird. The results, at any rate in these 

 two white-nailed Geese, are entirely unsatisfactor}-. 



But, you may say, all this might be avoided in the case of these 

 Common Geese by painting from live birds kept in captivity. Both 

 Grej'-lags and White-fronts, for instance, are, or have been, kept at 



