BRENT GEESE. 197 



much smarter than they appear in getting under way. Con- 

 sequently the trigger must be struck at the same instant 

 that the black pinions begin to spread. Not the eighth part 

 of a second must elapse, or assuredly not a bird will be hit. 

 The best shots at Geese are invariably made on the wing, by 

 keeping a good elevation on the gun, and firing the instant 

 they rise. The best time of all, when the heaviest shots 

 are made, is on the break-up of long-protracted periods of 

 frost and hard weather. At such times the Geese are often 

 mixed with Mallard and Wigeon ; in mild weather they 

 keep separate. 



Just at dark the whole host rise on wing together, and 

 make for the open sea. In the morning they come in by 

 companies and battalions, but at night they go out in one 

 solid army ; and a fine sight it is to witness their departure. 

 The whole host, perhaps ten thousand strong, here massed 

 in dense phalanxes, elsewhere in columns, tailing off into 

 long skeins, Y's, or rectilineal formations of every conceiv- 

 able shape (but always with a certain formation) — out they 

 go, some two hundred yards high, while their loud clanging 

 *' honk, houk ! " and its running accompaniment of lower 

 croaks and shrill bi-tones, resounds for miles around. 



When much harassed and disturbed by punts during the 

 day, Brents sometimes come into the harbour by night, 

 especially dm-ing full moon ; but they are fully aware of the 

 danger of doing so, and of their own (comparatively) 

 deficient power of vision during the dark. Hence they 

 only trust themselves inside by night as a last resource, and 

 when driven to it by hunger ; they also, as a rule, take the 

 precaution of returning to sea before the tide has flowed 

 over the mud. They are seldom, therefore, obtained at 

 night by punt-gunners, though a few 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 spectacle — the 

 sportsman splashing and plodging half-way up his long sea- 

 boots in the rotten, treacherous mud, with the little flock of 



