WILD WINGS: A FAREWELL 305 



act of satisfying his want, and down to the sheep he 

 accordingly goes and carries some of the others with 

 him. 



The action of the starlings going off with the geese 

 may perhaps be accounted for in the same way. An 

 impulse due to an associate feeling caused those thirty 

 birds to break away from the flock. These starlings 

 were probably migrants from the north of Europe 

 and were intimate with geese : they had perhaps even 

 travelled with the geese over lands already whitened 

 with snow and over the sea ; they had also probably 

 fed with the geese in green meadows and fields where 

 both birds find their food in abundance. The sight 

 of the flying geese became associated in their minds 

 with some such past experience and they were instantly 

 carried away by an impulse to join and fly with them, 

 but only some thirty of the flock, the other seventy 

 remaining unaffected or uninfected by the example. 



My best evening was on October 29, for at the close 

 of that day the sky cleared and the geese returned not in 

 detachments, but all together a little earlier than usual. 

 I was out on the marsh towards Blakeney, a mile and 

 a half or so from Wells, when, about half an hour 

 before sunset, a solitary goose came flying by me towards 

 the sea, keeping only a foot or two above the ground. 

 It was a wounded bird, shot somewhere on its feeding- 

 ground, and, being unable to keep with the flock, was 

 travelling slowly and painfully to the roosting-place 

 on the sands. When it had got about a couple of hun- 



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