44 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



That bird was much in my mind at the moment, 

 for I was just back from the east coast, where I had 

 been staying with the wild geese, so to speak, at 

 Wells-next-the-Sea, watching them every day in 

 their great gatherings and listening to their multi- 

 tudinous resounding cries, which affect one like bells, 

 " jangled, out of tune and harsh " it may be, but the 

 sense of wildness and freedom the sound imparts 

 is exceedingly grateful. 



Some of his adventures among the geese caused me 

 to remark that, even if I had not long ceased to be a 

 sportsman, I would never again lift a gun against a 

 wild goose ; it was so intelligent a bird that it would 

 be like shooting at a human being. He had no such 

 feeling — could not understand it. If geese were 

 more intelligent than other species, that only made 

 them the better sporting birds, and the pleasure of 

 circumventing them was so much the greater. There 

 was nothing better to get the taste of shooting half- 

 tame hand-fed driven birds out of the mouth than 

 a week or two after wild geese. He had just had a 

 fine time with them on the coast of Norway. This 

 reminded him of something. Yes, the wild goose 

 was about as intelligent a bird as you could find. 

 The friend he had been staying with was the owner 

 of a small group of islands or islets on the coast of 

 Norway ; he had bought them a good many years 

 ago purely for sporting purposes, as the geese invariably 

 came there on migration and spent some time on the 

 islands. There was one island where the geese used 



