502 BRITISH BIRDS. 



feeds iu its company on commons and other suitable places. The Grey 

 gander has even been known to condescend to marry into the domesti- 

 cated family, though he declines to be driven home with his mate to 

 roost ; but the tame gander does not appear ever to be successful in his 

 attempts to woo the Wild Goose. On the wing the Grey Goose looks 

 heavy and its flight laborious, but on migration it may often be seen at a 

 great height in the air progressing with remarkable swiftness. It is 

 capable of long-sustained, rapid, and steady flight : the birds appear to fly 

 in families, which take the form of wedges, presumably with the old gander 

 at the apex as leader; and when two or three families join together into a 

 string they present the appearance of several W^s or V^s, of which first 

 one V and then another is the leader. In the breeding-season, when a 

 pair of geese fly together, the gander generally follows the goose. 



The note of the Grey Goose closely resembles that of its congeners ; it 

 is not so musical as the trumpeting of the Swan, nor quite so harsh as the 

 quack of the Duck. It is impossible exactly to represent it on paper : one 

 of its notes, supposed to be associated with love and war, is a loud trumpet- 

 like sound; but as one bird calls to another on migration, or on their 

 feeding-grounds, it sounds something like gag, gag. When the goose 

 and the gander are chattering together, it is lower and softer, and might be 

 represented as tat, tat, tat; but when a flock of Geese are suddenly sur- 

 prised it becomes an alarm-note — loud, shrill, harsh, long-drawn out at 

 intervals, kak, kak, kike, sometimes even ki-ike. 



The old Grey Geese arrive at their breeding-grounds in flocks; but as 

 they pair for life, no time is lost before nest-building is commenced. The 

 birds of the year remain in the vicinity of the breeding-grounds in small 

 parties ; but when they are old enough to breed (which is certainly not 

 .before they are almost two years old, and probably, in most instances, not 

 until they are nearly three years old) they pair soon after their arrival in 

 their breeding-grounds, a ceremony which is accompanied with many 

 fights between the ganders for the possession of the geese. The Grey 

 Goose is one of the earliest breeders ; in Germany eggs may often be 

 obtained before the end of March, and in Norway they are often laid in 

 May, within the Arctic regions before the ice and snow are gone. The 

 Grey Goose is a very shy bird, and chooses the most inaccessible swamps 

 and the wildest moors and morasses for its breeding-grounds. Unfortu- 

 nately localities lonely enough become rarer and rarer ; in many places 

 where it formerly bred in great numbers the Grey Goose is now entirely 

 unknown. Naumann, who docs not often give his readers a glimpse of the 

 poetical side of his subject (except now and then in a footnote), apparently 

 sharing the delusion of many modern writers that a true scientific history 

 of a bird can be written without it, mentions very pathetically a now 

 long-ago deserted breeding-place, where one glorious spring morning, 



