188 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



mentioned could amply do. Lord Fitzhardinge, one season, 

 bagged to his own gun ninety-nine geese ; and, considering that, 

 weather permitting, he hunts four days a week, and shoots game 

 on the other two, and was then only at Berkeley Castle alternate 

 months throughout the winter, unless he shot on Sunday, which 

 he did not do, he had not much time, save in occasional frosts, 

 to accomplish such a collective bag. Any man accustomed to 

 any species of woodcraft, or chase of wild things, whether 

 feathered or four-footed, must know that it is not anything like 

 the most successful way, always to attempt their capture or 

 death in one unvaried manner. Geese, geese though they are, 

 will very soon be down on the danger of flying over one bank 

 within shot, if from that bank, when driven, they are always 

 shot at. The lesser wild -fowl at Heron Court become so in 

 regard to the "gazes,' 1 or hiding-places on Lord Malmsbury's 

 rivers. Towards the end of the season ; and, in the history of 

 birds, and study of their nature, I have undoubtedly observed 

 that they have some means of communicating danger to others 

 of their species, not merely an approaching or imminent danger, 

 but a dangerous thing to be avoided thence and thereafter ; and 

 this caution is taught to the generation that are coming in the 

 egg, as well as to stranger-fowl who have had no personal or 

 local experience. Curious as this assertion is, and unaccount- 

 able as is the fact, though I have observed it generally, I will 

 give the last instance that has freshened on my observation, 

 and in testimony of its truth I refer the reader to the railway 

 porters and plate-layers. When the electric wires were first put 

 up, a vast number of birds which in windy weather fly swiftly 

 and low, killed themselves in their flight by concussion with the 

 wires. These victims consisted chiefly of golden plovers, black 

 game, grouse, woodcocks, snipes, partridges, and occasionally 

 wood-pigeons, pheasants, and a few other birds ; but since the 

 wires have been up, now a space of some years, the deaths by 

 birds flying against them have considerably decreased. Take 

 the line through the New Forest : there, since the most salutary 

 law introduced by his late Royal Highness the Duke of 



