A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



in two or three years be a channel of the river ; 

 and a fresh foreshore will spring up in another 

 parish. When the tide is out there are wide 

 stretches of mud alternating with sand-banks and 

 stretches of seaweed-covered rocks. As a result 

 of this, birds requiring food from vegetation must 

 either be content with the meagre fare off the 

 foreshore, or fly inland to the large peaceful 

 meadows. They usually prefer the latter, since 

 they are denied an oozy foreshore covered with 

 miscellaneous herbage and weeds. Whether it 

 is entirely due to the difficulties of working a 

 punt on Severn waters, or whether it is partly 

 due to this cause and partly to the fact that the 

 feeding habits already mentioned check the pre- 

 sence of large flocks of birds along the estuary 

 itself, except when resting or watering, we can- 

 not say, but the punt-gunner is absent from the 

 Severn. The swift currents, the rushing tides 

 and 'bore,' the ground-swells, and heavy seas 

 render a punt unsuitable and aiming uncertain. 

 A small boat and a shoulder-gun comprise the 

 outfit of the most successful wild-fowler, who, to 

 succeed, must possess a thorough knowledge of 

 the river and its ways. Having regard to the 

 tides and currents, and to the fact that in many 

 places a deep channel may become a mudbank in 

 the course of even two or three tides, such 

 knowledge is indispensable. Punt-guns have 

 very occasionally been tried, but set aside after a 

 few attempts to use them. The most successful 

 wild-fowler on the Severn known to the writer 

 has tried the punt-gun and every kind of 

 shoulder-gun from a aS-bore to a 2-bore. A 

 punt-gun was soon dismissed, a single 4-bore 

 was a favourite for some time, and one cartridge 

 has brought down thirteen wigeon, and another 

 five geese, but all have given way to a double 

 lo-bore as the most generally useful weapon. A 

 considerable number of geese visit the Severn. 

 They begin to arrive about the middle or end of 

 September. Small flocks come at first, then 

 large flocks, and with an interval their numbers 

 are more or less maintained until the first south- 

 west gale after about 21 February. Generally 

 speaking, they feed during the day on the big 

 meadows away from the Severn in scattered 

 'skeins.' They unite on the edge of the estuary 

 or river to rest or to bathe between ten and 

 eleven in the morning, and again between two 

 and three in the afternoon, and stay for half-an- 

 hour or an hour or more, but for the shorter 

 time in the afternoon. After sunset they return 

 to the river for the night, unless there happens to 

 be a bright moon, when they sometimes stay 

 inland all night. The flocks are nominally 

 larger in a hard winter than in a mild one. 



The Pink-footed Goose (Melanonyx bracby- 

 rhynchus) is the first species to arrive in the 

 autumn. This goose comes during the latter 

 half of September, and it is believed, forms the 

 bulk of the flocks, numbering in all perhaps 

 2,000 or 3,000 birds, which stay until about the 



end of October, when nearly all this first lot 

 leaves. A very few remain on, and towards the 

 end of November the White-fronted Goose 

 (Amer a/bifrons), begins to arrive and coming in 

 large numbers of from 4,000 to 10,000, stays 

 until the end of the goose season. The question 

 of the Bean Goose (presumably Anser arvensis not 

 segetum) l has not been settled. It certainly is 

 not a mere straggler, as the Grey-Lag (Anser 

 anser) is believed to be, or as the Barnacle Goose 

 (Bernula leucopsis) certainly is ; for small flocks 

 occur at various times during the goose season. 

 Whether the bulk come with the first or the second 

 lot of geese that arrive, or some with both is not 

 definitely ascertained. Probably the bulk come 

 with the first lot. To the wild-fowler the 

 white-fronted geese offer the best sport. Whe- 

 ther he can get shelter or not, if he is in their 

 line of flight as they come from inland to the 

 river, he can kill birds out of the leading ' skeins,' 

 and the others still come on and offer good 

 shots. The pink-footed geese, on the other 

 hand, are shy of a boat in view as it is when the 

 birds approach from the open side of a ' gutter ' or 

 one-banked channel : the first shot at them under 

 such conditions is the last. It is probably due to 

 this boldness on the part of the white-fronted 

 geese that the method of shooting them on the 

 Berkeley estate is so successful. The shooters 

 are placed about 200 yds. from the river behind 

 shelter, and beaters drive the geese from the 

 meadows when they are feeding. The geese 

 make for the water, and passing over or between 

 the shelters afford good shooting. The double 

 lo-bore gun seems to be the favourite on these 

 occasions. At night the wild-fowler has excel- 

 lent opportunities of getting a shot on the river 

 at the resting geese, and at such ducks as happen 

 to have remained about the water. The methods 

 adopted are either to let the boat drift with the 

 current or tide, or to keep it steady and to allow 

 the birds to drift to it. Food being obtained 

 chiefly away from the river, and birds at dusk 

 and dawn continually changing positions inland 

 and on the water, the opportunities along the 

 Severn banks also are many. But the wild- 

 fowler's best chance of all is in a fog on the open 

 river ; still shooting in the fog is open to a grave 

 objection. The sportsman can get well among 

 flocks of birds on the water and make good bagsj 

 but the result is that birds, especially geese, 

 scatter all over the country, even retreating high 

 up on the Cotteswold Hills for days. 



The only species of the duck tribe worth 

 taking into account are the Mallard (Anas boscas\ 

 the Teal (Nettion crecca), the Wigeon (Mareca 

 penelope), and the Pochard (Fuligula ferina). The 

 order in which they are placed indicates their 

 numerical precedence on the estuary, but from 

 the point of view of the wild-fowler the wigeon 

 should take precedence of the teal. The former 



1 cf. Alpheraky, The Geese of Europe and Asia, 1905. 



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