88 THE BEAN GOOSE AND PINK-FOOTED GOOSE. 



beautiful ballad of " The Battle of Twinlaw " ^ has thrown a 

 halo of romance like the soft purple light of the evening 

 which then coloured the landscape. Far away in the distance 

 to the south-west the Eildons rose above the horizon, bringing 

 recollections of " the wondrous Michael Scott " and 



The words that cleft Eildon Hills in three, 

 And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone." 



Mr. Hardy says that boys in the county believe that the 

 Wild Geese in their flight can form all the letters of the 

 alphabet.^ They sometimes call to the Geese — 



Tring a' tring o' Wild Geese 

 Black Jock forenent. 



Another rhyme heard among children in Berwickshire is — 



Wild Geese ! Wild Geese ! how far will ye flee. 

 To Herrington and Berrington and owre the Red Sea? 

 Where do ye sit ? Down the water-fit. 

 Where do ye stand ? On the dry land. 



When heavy snow is falling in large flakes the Berwickshire 

 boys say that 



The folk o' the East are plucking their Geese, 

 And sending their feathers to me, ! •* 



The Wild Goose appears to have been much used for the 

 table in Scotland in olden times, for we find the Scottish 

 Parliament in 1551 fixing the price of the " Wild Guse of 

 the great kind " at " twa shillinges." ^ 



The Bean Goose has yellow legs and the middle portion 



1 JVeio Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ii. (Berwickshire), p. 73. 



2 Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto ii. 13. 



3 lu the neighhoui'liood of Saltouii, in East-Lothian, I have heard boys thirty 

 years ago calling to tlie Hocks of Wild Geese, as they passed high overhead in the 

 air, " Make A, make 0," and so on. 



^ A similar rhyme is heard in East-Lothian— 



" The folk o' the East are plucking their Geese, 

 And sending their feathers to our toon." 

 ■'' Laws and Acts of Parliament of Scotlaml, by Sir Thomas Murray of Glen- 

 dook : Edinburgh, 1681, p. 145. 



