WILD-GOOSE SHOOTING 181 



their bewilderment I have seen hundreds of geese 

 flying about over the chimney-pots of some village 

 which has barred their passage to the open sea. 



In severe frosts bfent probably suffer less than 

 other fowl, as they can pick up a fair living on drift 

 weed in the open water, and with their long necks 

 reach the submerged blades of vegetation growing 

 on the outer edges of the mudbanks which remain 

 unfrozen. In 1 880-81, and again in February 1895, 

 the large masses of ice which blocked some of their 

 favourite bays and settled over the flats deprived 

 them of their means of subsistence, and, conse- 

 quently, in their straitened circumstances, thousands 

 were killed in a few weeks by the punt-gunners. 

 Their plight must indeed have been desperate when 

 it is stated that, at one of their principal rendezvous 

 with which I was acquainted, they resorted to fields 

 of cabbages near the coast and devoured every atom 

 of green food which they could find there. 



All wild geese are credited by some fowlers with 

 restricted visionary powers - at night ; but I have not 

 the least doubt that brent can see any suspicious 

 object in the dark quite as well as widgeon or ducks. 

 Now and then one may observe them sitting silent 

 and motionless on the shallows under the moon- 

 beams, and although it is probable that many of them 



