4 WILD GEESE 



secure the choicest morsel if it lies deeper than the length 

 of their necks. All these birds can dive excellently when 

 put to it when winged, for instance, and pursued by a 

 retriever. 



As the light broadened, I could make out the various 

 companies, some not five-and- twenty yards from my feet, 

 others twinkling through the gloom of the farther shore, 

 a quarter of a mile away. Then, just before the upper 

 limb of the sun appeared above the eastern woods, the 

 lake being still in shadow, there passed seaward, right 

 over my head, within easy shot, but high enough to be 

 illumined by the beams of an unseen sun, a gaggle of 

 seventeen gray-lag geese, flying in a perfectly symmetrical 

 >. That was the climax of the morning. Presently, up 

 jumped the sun, and I wended my homeward way to 

 breakfast, more in love than ever with the shrew Winter. 



II 



I have often been asked why water-fowl, alone among 



birds, invariably fall into the > formation when 

 Wild Geese . . , , ., . , _, 



taking a prolonged night. Other gregarious 



birds of excellent wingmanship rooks, plovers, pigeons, 

 and so on do not adopt it. Many of them obey either 

 a single leader or a simultaneous impulse communicated 

 from a committee of leaders, as may be seen any day by 

 watching the gyrations of a flock of lapwings ; but swift 

 and precise as are the evolutions of these birds, they 

 are performed in a mass, without apparent geometrical 

 cohesion. I have searched in vain through such ornitho- 

 logical works as are at hand for some reason or hypothesis 

 to account for the peculiar order of the flight of water- 



