24 * LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORV. 



nessed this capture, 3,325 Geese were taken, of which no less 

 than 3,300 were Brents. Of the interesting details given by 

 the author there is not space to extract more than a few words, 

 but the whole scene is very vividly described by him. " Long 

 before we could see the boats, for the mist had thickened, we 

 could hear shouting and the cries of the Geese, but after a bit 

 first one boat and then another came into view. On the men 

 came, but very slowly ; now pulling across a creek, now push- 

 ing the arnoh over a bit of mud or hauling it over a sand- 

 ridge, sometimes leaving it altogether and running off to head 

 the Geese. So, slowly, they came zig-zagging along. 



" By this time we could see Geese by thousands through 

 the mist. I could even distinguish the short trumpet-note of 

 the Brent among the general babel. It was, indeed, a babel. 

 How to convey to you any idea of it I do not know. If you 

 can imagine many hundred farmyard Geese and many thousand 

 cornets all sounding together, and crowded on by a handful of 

 screaming wild men if you can imagine all this, then you are 

 not far off the mark. . . . 



" For some little while the Geese delayed as though they 

 felt that they were getting too much inland, or suspected a 

 trap in front. Then the boats came up from behind and the 

 Geese crowded on. They didn't like going. Sometimes the 

 leading Geese would stop and wheel about, heading right into 



the mass But the boats came steadily on. 



Every moment I looked to see the parents escape by diving, 

 or expected some to rise, for it was plain enough that many 

 were full-winged. Neither of these things they did ; only, like 

 a pack of idiots, they ' wanked ' and swam along. The grey 

 Geese dived. The Bean and the White-fronts behaved exactly 

 alike. First they laid out their long necks flat on the water, 

 as their fellows did on the land. Then, as the boats came 

 nearer, they sank their bodies till the water was almost over 

 their backs. It was wonderfully difficult to see them they 

 looked like bits of stick. When a boat approached a bird, it 

 would just sink its head and shoot forward under the water. 

 They never went down like Diving-Ducks." 



" And now the body of Brents was exactly opposite the 

 entrance to the nets, and about them in a half-circle were the 

 boats. Round and round they swam, but refused to leave the 



