AMONG THE WILD GEESE. 



203 



exquisitely pencilled plumage and brightly contrasting colours. 

 This was a good beginning, and a mile or so further up we 

 observed a couple of Geese sitting on a dry sand-bank. They 

 were evidently " pensioners," or pricked birds, so we decided 

 to wait till the flowing tide should take us to them, when I 

 killed the pair, right and left, with the cripple-stopper, as 

 they rose ofl' the sea within forty yards. This last acquisi- 

 tion, however, had cost us a considerable delay — over an 

 hour — and during that time the main bodies of Geese had 

 been passing in from the sea, filing off in long, black, gag- 



SETTING TO GEESE. 

 " Right a bit . . . steadj- ! That'll do . . . steady ! " 



gling skeins to the salt grasses ahead. And on our arrival 

 on the edge of their feeding grounds, we truly appeared to 

 have good reasons for abusing that unlucky pair of " pen- 

 sioners," and our own folly in wasting a precious hour in 

 securing them. For there, all congregated on the wide- 

 stretching flat of slobby ooze, sat some thousand Geese, 

 greedily guzzling on the succulent salt grass, while two creeks 

 in the level mud, which appeared to converge on their posi- 

 tion, were each occupied by a rival gunner. 



How we anathematized our "ill-luck" (as bad judgment 



