WHERE WILD GEESE CONGREGATE 31 



sides as quickly as the first. By-aml-by a fresh flock of 

 geese arrive, returning from some inland feeding-ground, 

 where tlie gunners have been after them, flying high 

 with a great clamour whicii you hear before they become 

 visible. Arrived at the refuge, they wheel round and 

 begin their descent, but do not alight; again they rise 

 to circle about and again descend, and when close to 

 the earth, every bird dropping his bright-coloured legs 

 to touch the ground, suddenly they change their minds 

 and rise to wheel about for a minute or two and then 

 go right away out to sea. 



It was no doubt my presence on several occasions 

 which prevented them from settling down with the 

 others; for it was no harmless shepherd or farm- 

 labourer which they perceived looked on standing mo- 

 tionless by the gate watching their fellows, a suspicious- 

 looking object in his hand. It might be a gamekeeper 

 or sportsman whose intention was to send a charge of 

 shot into the crowd. But this going away of the flock 

 instead of alighting would prove too much for the 

 others: they would now be all awake; the suspicion 

 would grow and grow, every bird standing up with out- 

 stretched neck; then they would draw closer together, 

 emitting excited cackling sounds, all asking what it was 

 — what had frightened their fellows and sent them 

 away — what danger invisible to them had they spied 

 from aloft ? And then they would spring simultaneously 

 into the air with a rushing noise of wings and tempest 

 of screams, and rising high go straight away over the sea, 

 soon vanishing from sight, only to return half an hour 



