THE WILD GOOSE. 45 



Geese will cause in a field of either of these kinds of grain in spring 

 is prodigious. The Grey Goose is a very good bird for the table, 

 but his flesh is firmer and better-flavoured when he has been 

 enabled to procure grain, on stubble fields or elsewhere. On an 

 alarm being given all the birds run together for a second or two 

 before taking flight, and should the stalker have been fortunate 

 enough to get within range, a shot at this moment will give satis- 

 factory results. This happy position, however, is one very difficult 

 of attainment, for, as a rule, the birds avoid carefully a near 

 approach to anything that will afford shelter to an enemy 

 hedgerows, ditches, and the like. 



Unless, therefore, they be found on exceptionally favourable 

 ground, driving is to be preferred to stalking, and by this means 

 some of these fine birds are often secured. Such is the attraction 

 afforded by newly-sown cornfields that if these be situated in a 

 thinly-populated district, the geese will remain for days in their 

 neighbourhood feeding upon them, retiring for the night to some 

 conveniently situated loch or tarn among the mountains. In the 

 month of March, Wild Geese visit some of our Scottish counties 

 in considerable numbers in search of food of this description, and 

 it has fallen to my lot on more than one occasion, when in 

 Haddington and Berwickshire, at that time of the year, to bag a 

 good many of them. While staying at a country house in the 

 latter county some years ago, I received a visit one night from a 

 remarkable old character, called Sandy Johnston. Sandy was a 

 regular Jack-of-all-trades, and amongst other accomplishments 

 he was better acquainted with the habits of the wild fowl than 

 anyone else in the district. Knowing my liking for a shot at 

 the Wild Geese, he had come to tell me that for the last two days 



