434 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



within a mile, in a narrow gut where I was lying in my 

 punt. Naturally expecting to find the geese wide-awake 

 after the reception they had just received, I elevated the 

 gun high for a flying shot : but to our surprise, got close 

 up without any signs of alarm being observed. The utter 

 carelessness, however, of these geese actually proved their 

 salvation and, from my point of view, a serious catas- 

 trophe. Being at very close quarters, I decided to take the 

 sitting shot, and drew in the elevator, taking point-blank 

 aim. But I forgot to allow for the high trajectory at so 

 short a distance — perhaps forty yards, never having been 

 so near to geese before — and thus, although the gun lay 

 aligned on the thick of a forest of necks, the whole charge 

 passed clean over them, without touching a feather ! Later 

 in the day I had a modified revenge. The same geese 

 were rounding a point of land when we "set" to them 

 from inshore. Never were geese so tame! So near were 

 we as they crossed our bows, that their black paddles 

 were clearly visible, working away under the barred flanks. 

 They were at that moment too straggled to offer a fair 

 shot ; but as they weathered the point and formed up 

 beyond, we had their company in flank and fairly raked 

 them, empunting eleven geese. 



Similarly, on February 28th (1880), my brother Walter 

 was out in a punt at Teesmouth when a flight of sixty 

 or seventy wigeon arrived in from sea, and, after a few 

 gyrations, pitched along the edge of a sand-bank. Here 

 they allowed so near an approach that, though he had 

 only a shoulder-gun, the 3 oz. of shot stopped no less than 

 sixteen, of which fourteen were fairly bagged. The birds 

 were, no doubt, beautifully lined-out : still it was an 

 exceptional shot for a shoulder-gun, and in broad day- 

 light. Neither of these two incidents would have occurred 



