346 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



follow their movements. First as to the physical character 

 and natural features of the locality which they seek for 

 their abode. Grey-geese, unlike their somewhat distant 

 relatives the brents, claim to share the fruits of the earth 

 with their arch-enemy, man. Grain is what they want, 

 and, despite the most deeply-rooted fear and suspicion of 

 our race, they will have it, and will frequent the arable 

 lands so long as a stubble remains unploughed. After 

 that, they will content themselves with the tender blades of 

 clover or of meadow-grass ; or perhaps will wing their way 

 southwards to lands where a more bountiful nature, or a 

 lazier race dispense with the plough. Feeding on the 

 open corn-lands by day, their next desideratum is security 

 by night. Inland, they spend the hours of darkness in the 

 centre of extensive pastures, or upon the water of an un- 

 disturbed lake or pool ; but on the coast, if Anser cinereus 

 could define his beatt ideal of a "bedroom," it would be 

 "ten square miles of dead-level sand, over which the 

 highest spring-tides never flow." 



Such are the two desiderata of these wary fowl, and to 

 a locality affording both requirements, the grey-geese come 

 year after year, arriving in successive contingents till their 

 full numbers are made up by about the end of October. 

 Their normal habit, in common with the whole genus 

 Anser, is to feed by day and to retire to sleep by night. 

 But in October, when they first arrive, they find the fields 

 full of workpeople, harvesters gathering in and leading the 

 corn. Hence they are compelled temporarily to vary what 

 is otherwise their normal disposition of time, in order to 

 suit the exigencies of the moment. At that season, 

 hundreds of grey-geese may often be seen sitting huddled 

 together during the day at their roosting-places on the 

 sand-flats. Now and then a detachment will rise, take a 



