GEESE: COLLECTIVE AND INDIVIDUAL 133 



the gale, they nearly always fly in the form of the 

 letter V, a single bird forming the point of the letter 

 and two diverging strings of birds the two lines. In 

 both cases the order is adopted for the purpose of 

 lessening the resistance of the air to all save the lead- 

 ing bird. Observers tell us that each member of a 

 gaggle takes its turn as leader. ... I have never 

 been so fortunate as to witness a change of leader- 

 ship. So closely at times do the birds fly in a string 

 that they seem almost to be touching one another. 

 The altitude reached by grey geese when making a 

 lengthy journey is enormous. A faint, barely audible 

 cry reaches one's ears on some still, early winter 

 morning, a cry one recognises as that of grey geese. 

 After searching the zenith, one at last detects the 

 skein, so far up that the birds appear mere tiny 

 specks as they wing their way across the sky. 



' The belief, which was at one time apparently 

 well-nigh universal, that bernacle or barnacle geese 

 probably the bird originally called the barnacle goose 

 was really the brent and not the bernacle at all were 

 directly evolved from barnacles, or limpets, came 

 about from a resemblance in and corruption of words. 

 Dr. Brewer (" Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ") 

 deals with the matter thus : " The strange tales of 

 this creature (the bernacle goose) have arisen from a 



