288 WANDERING GEESE. 



misery. In the meanwhile the sportsman, with his stick, 

 kills such as he falls in with. But as on these occasions 

 the birds retreat very quickly, he would have much diffi- 

 culty in overtaking them, if he did not, during the chase, 

 proceed on the principle of never running directly after, 

 but alongside of and past them, and as if not aware 

 of their presence. In this case they, believing them- 

 selves unobserved, squat at once, and hide in the 

 grass, where they remain entirely motionless, so that 

 one may go directly up to the spot, and secure them with 

 the hand. The wild geese often lie so close as to sull'er 

 themselves to be wounded and mangled by the dogs with- 

 out giving the least signs of life ; but swans, and even 

 geese, will nevertheless, at times, place themselves on the 

 defensive, for which reason large dogs are used. As these, 

 however, only kill the birds, and are not taught to retrieve, 

 it may easily happen that the sportsman, after the termina- 

 tion of the hunt, and when collecting the spoil, has great 

 difficulty in finding it in the high and thick grass. The 

 summer of 1827," he goes on to say, "was not a success- 

 ful one; but during the preceding year the inhabitants 

 of Killinge, in the parish of Gellivara, thus captured 

 sixty wild geese, besides other fowl." 



Again : "When you meet with the large geejsc during 

 the moulting season in the small mountain lakes," writes 

 Lrestadius, " and if a boat be not at hand, you may drive 

 them to the shore either by throwing stones, or by swim- 

 ming. In the year 1828, here in Karcsuando upwards 

 of one hundred wild geese were killed by several squatters, 

 in a remote and sequestered tarn." 



The reverend gentleman tells us further, that, " whilst 

 moulting, the geese make long pedestrian excursions from 

 one lake, or tarn, to another ; and that in the autumn of 

 1*21, a Lapp knocked five of these birds on the head at 

 the summit of Hie \\ell known fjiill, Sulitelma.'' 





