More about Wildfowl 93 



lower. Many thousands pass to right and left, 

 but each gun gets a few over him and the drive 

 results in a pick up of nine more grey geese. 

 Here I must offer further excuses for the small- 

 ness of the bag. Geese are nearly always much 

 further away than they appear to be. One sees 

 a line of geese that seems certain to afford a good 

 chance ; but a movement of a head or gun is 

 made a fraction of a second too soon, and with- 

 out seeming to alter their course they let them- 

 selves slip away in the wind and one finds oneself 

 blazing vainly at birds eighty yards away or more. 

 We always expended a great many cartridges 

 in proportion to the numbers of geese killed. 

 We fired at many without hitting them, and we 

 hit many without bringing them down. Those 

 bagged were nearly always either shot in the 

 head or neck, or with broken pinions, rarely in 

 the breast. It might be supposed that a goose 

 within shot ought never to be missed, but those 

 that harbour such ideas can have had but little 

 experience of wild geese, or at any rate of wild 

 geese in a Seistan gale. Often, no doubt, these 

 misses were owing to our cramped position, but 

 often also to absolute misjudgment of the pace. 

 I have observed on a still day geese and duck 

 flying together, the latter having the better pace. 

 Against the wind there is not much in it; but 



