CHAPTER XXVII 



BRENT GEESE 



The wildest and gamest, as well as the most numerous, 

 of all our winter wildfowl, the brent geese, in hard weather 

 and favourable seasons, afford right royal sport to the 

 punt-gunner, and with this additional advantage, that 

 their pursuit is enjoyed exclusively during' the hours of 

 daylight. 



Though they are so abundant, and on many parts of 

 our coasts the chief object of pursuit of the puntsman in 

 mid-winter, yet on the north-east coast the brents are 

 quite the last to arrive of all the migratory fowl which 

 seek refuge on our shores from the rigours of the northern 

 winter. The wigeon appear in September, the grey-geese 

 and most of the diving-ducks are all here before the 

 close of October : but the brents delay their arrival in 

 force till the New Year, or even later. The date of their 

 arrival on this coast, as well as the numbers which visit 

 us, are precisely regulated by the state of the weather 

 at the different points of their range. Although they 

 have completed their domestic duties in Spitsbergen and 

 Novaya Zemlya, and left those desolate regions by the 

 end of August or early in September, yet they do not 

 reach our coast in force till some four months afterwards. 

 So strong - is their hyperborean affection, that they will 



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