GREY-GEESE 349 



"rake" at these impracticable fowl. They sat massed 

 more thickly than a battalion of guards, and as the punt 

 shot ahead, towered tall as a herd of giraffes before us. I 

 know my heart fairly bumped on the bottom-boards as 

 momentarily we seemed to be getting- on level terms with 

 fowl that had so long- defied us. Nearer still . . . and 

 then that horrid hissing- sound told we were touching- the 

 sand. Only a yard or two nearer could she possibly 

 float, when, with another mighty outcry, up-rose the 

 geese and I fired. "How many down? "and I jumped 

 to my knees, only to see with unspeakable vexation that 

 the whole pack was scathless. The great size and high 

 carriage of these geese (they were sitting dry, not afloat 

 as we had hoped) had deceived us, and instead of being 

 within a hundred yards, the range, we found, had been 

 nearly double. Then for six miles we "poled " homewards 

 in silence, misery, and darkness. 



To return to the habits of the geese. With the frosts 

 of December, nearly all those which have arrived in 

 October disappear from our coast. This departure of 

 the "harvest geese" on the approach of winter is one of 

 the set phases in their life-histories. Then, in spring, 

 they turn up again, and during March and April spend 

 some six weeks or so here, on their way north. The 

 local gunners hold that they leave us as soon as the 

 stubbles are exhausted, and return in spring for the seed- 

 corn ; but it is probable that their nature, rather than 

 food-supply, is the main cause of their movements. One 

 other fact remains to be considered, as bearing on specific 

 distribution : — namely, that even during hard and severe 

 winters, in January and February, there is often to be 

 seen an abundance of grey-geese frequenting the same 

 haunts, and living identically the same life as those 



