334 



BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



night as a last resource ; they also, as a rule, take 

 the precaution of returning" to sea before the tide has 

 flowed over the mud. They are never, therefore, obtained 

 at night by punt-gunners, though a few may fall victims 

 to the flight-shooters. 



Some of their habits, when wounded, are rather 

 curious. After a shot on the mud, when the gunner goes 

 ashore to retrieve his spoils, the winged geese march 

 away before him in a little herd. It is almost a ludicrous 



"The Last Resource." Wounded Goose trying to hide 

 on Bare Shore. 



spectacle — the fowler splashing and plodging half-way up 

 his long sea 7 boots in the rotten, treacherous mud, with 

 the little flock of geese waddling and croaking just in 

 front of him, for all the world like an old henwife driving 

 her brood to market. One by one, as they are overtaken, 

 each bird lies flat down on the mud, stretching out his 

 snake-like neck horizontally in a last hope of escaping 

 detection. It is, moreover, astonishing how easy it is to 

 overlook a goose (which has fallen at a distance) when 



