BIRDS IN THE FROST FOG 199 



about in the welcome light, settled on these trees, 

 although we were standing below them. But we must 

 have been quite "Invisible to the birds, for though we 

 shot as many as we wanted, fresh numbers constantly 

 arrived on the trees at the foot of which we stood in 

 the open road. In this road, which was very cold and 

 skirted by the copse, the. fog hung closer than else- 

 where, which perhaps accounted for our invisibility. 

 On another occasion, the writer came across a bird 

 really "lost in the fog." It was at Moor Allerton, 

 near Leeds, a village which stands on a high hill, 

 crowned by a large wood. By the road near the wood 

 stood one or two of what were then the last gas-lamps 

 of the town. Though it was not late in the afternoon, 

 the fog was so thick that these were lighted, and round 

 one of them was flying a large bird, either a wood- 

 pigeon or a stock-dove, which had probably lost its 

 way as it was making for the wood, and was helplessly 

 flying round the twinkling light. It continued to do 

 so as long as the writer cared to wait, but must have 

 gone on later, as it had disappeared when he returned. 



Wild geese, which like the wood-pigeons are most 

 wary birds, often become very tame, and even be- 

 wildered, in a fog. St. John used to shoot them easily 

 in the bay of Findhorn in such weather, waiting till 

 they flew inland, when they would come cackling just 

 over his head. But the oddest story of geese in the 

 fog comes from Norfolk, and was told to Mr. Steven- 

 son, the author of The Birds of Norfolk^ by the Rev. 

 ,H. T. Frere. A large flock of geese were attracted to 



