BIRDS IN THE CALENDAR 



working hard for every bird and displaying 

 Spartan indifference to the rigours of wintry 

 weather. To hardy sportsmen of their type, 

 wildfowl offer red-letter days with punt or 

 shoulder guns, not to be dreamt of under the 

 aegis of the gamekeeper. 



In this country, at any rate, we associate 

 the V-shaped companies of wigeon and 

 gaggles of geese with an ice-bound landscape, 

 though in exceptional years, even where 

 they no longer stay to breed, these night- 

 flying northerners linger to the coming of 

 spring, and Hawker noticed the curious 

 apparition of grey geese and swallows in 

 company on the first day of April, 1839. 

 This wedge formation of flight over land and 

 sea is not only peculiar to these waterfowl, 

 but is not apparently adopted by any other 

 long distance migrants. No satisfactory 

 explanation of their preference for flying hi 

 this order has been found, but it is thought to 

 lessen the air resistance, which must be a 

 consideration for these short-pinioned fowl 

 that weigh heavy hi proportion to their dis- 

 placement and at the same time lack the 

 tremendous spread of wing that enables the 

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