1 56 SHOOTING THE GOOSE 



than his ancestors, or whether his instinctive dread 

 of any moving object is due to the greater persecu- 

 tion which he suffers from fowlers, the fact seems 

 pretty evident that the era of stalking-horses, cows, 

 and other stratagems of this kind, has for all practical 

 purposes passed away, and that these can no longer 

 be considered reliable methods whereby geese, when 

 in any large numbers, may be successfully stalked. 

 Nor is this keener development of their instinctive 

 faculties less noticeable in their foreign haunts, for 

 Mr. Abel Chapman tells us, in his 'Wild Spain,' 

 that although the ducks of the Spanish marismas 

 are frequently killed by the aid of the cabresto 

 or stalking-pony, grey geese are rarely beguiled 

 in this manner, unless they happen to be in very 

 small parties. In ' Practical Wild-fowling,' the 

 author gives some excellent advice for shooting 

 geese with artificial stalking-horses, as well as 

 by means of the creeping-carriage, the latter being 

 a machine on wheels, carefully screened with 

 branches and rushes, in which the fowler propels 

 himself overland up to his quarry. This con- 

 trivance was, I believe, the invention of Colonel 

 Hawker, and, like the other stratagems referred 

 to, may be successful according to situation and 

 circumstances. 



