210 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



But the wary gunner, as I have said, sculls up in his 

 punt, and sometimes gets a shot over the wall, bagging a 

 fine nine-pound bird or two ; or else he waits till the flighting 

 hour, when the stars begin to peer, and, standing all ready, 

 he listens keenly, and hears them coming, calling just like a 

 tame goose, and suddenly the large birds fly almost silently 

 above him (as far as their wing-beats go), when a red flame 

 darts across the night, and some large bird falls into the 

 water. Indeed, many gunners say if they didn't keep calling 

 they would often get past unobserved, though they only fly 

 some twenty or thirty yards above the reeds at this hour. 



And so roaming restlessly (like all wild-fowl) from marsh 

 to marsh, night after night, they get knocked off by twos and 

 threes, until often a single bird the sole survivor of a flock 

 is to be seen, by day perchance, until he too is bagged. 



That other goose that sails by the Broadlands, and rarely 

 alights on the marshes, is what they call the " polean," black 

 or Scotch goose, or, in other words, the brent, whose flight 

 resembles a cormorant. Indeed, the one or two I saw on the 

 broads in the depth of winter we first took to be cormorants. 

 A few have been shot on Breydon, feeding on the duck-grass. 



Besides these two geese, bean geese and grey lag geese 

 are said to be shot ; and Mr. Everett, of Oulton, tells me he 

 has seen the bernacle goose there. 



But the pink-footed goose must be looked upon as the 

 goose of the marshland. 



WHITE-FRONTED GEESE. (From life.} 



