ON CONTINENTAL WATERS 235 



entirely fresh water, greylags are common. Mr. H. 

 Leybourne Popham, who has visited these parts for 

 many seasons, says that these birds sit very badly 

 to a punt-gun when ashore, but good chances often 

 occur when they are swimming on the water, a habit 

 to which they seem more addicted than any other 

 species of grey geese. Sometimes, by hiding behind 

 a 'dyke,' they may be driven overhead from the 

 meadows where they feed, and in this way Mr. Popham 

 says he once killed seventeen of them in two days. 

 The habits of all grey geese become modified by 

 various circumstances. If fog, for instance, comes on 

 overnight, and remains thick at daybreak, the geese 

 stay on the sands, but if the thick weather lasts for 

 forty-eight hours, not a goose will be found there on 

 the second day, as they will take any risk to avoid 

 compulsory starvation. 



Speaking of the bernacle and brent geese, Mr. 

 Pike also relates a fine shot of 40 at the former 

 species on the Krammershe Slikken, and after the 

 break-up of the great frost in 1891 he bagged 120 

 brent in four days at Brouwershaven and the Roggen 

 Plaat. As is their custom in France, the brent do 

 not leave the Dutch estuaries by night for the open 

 sea. 



Wild-fowl in Germany and Holland are captured 



