WILD GEESE. 21 



some that is new to him. This sport requires, too, .considerable 

 skill in judging the distance, and sharpness of vision in being 

 able to catch a glimpse of the ducks as they pass over. It is a 

 great help if you can place yourself so that you face the west, 

 and thus get the birds in the evening light, when they can 

 be seen coming a very long way off"; but if they come from 

 the eastward, and you are obliged to face that way, they never 

 show till close on you ; and the croaking frogs make an almost 

 deafening noise, so that you cannot, as in England, hear the 

 sound of the ducks' wings. 



Immense numbers of Wild Geese in some years are found in 

 the winter months about the Laguna de la Janda, and below 

 Seville, in the marshes of the Guadalquivir. They are of 

 course very difficult to " get at"; but as they pass the day 

 on the ground at the edge of the water, and always have 

 certain favourite spots to which they resort, they are to be 

 got by digging or making " hides " at the places they most 

 frequent. In the morning, at sunrise, they collect on the 

 water, in some places in hundreds, and swim about feeding 

 for an hour or two on some substance which they pick up 

 from the bottom of the shallow water ; after this they disperse 

 and take to the shore, where, if left undisturbed, they pr.cs 

 the day sleeping and pluming themselves. There is one of 

 these goose-haunts near the Palacio of the Goto del Rey, a 

 little to the south-east of it. One morning in January, having 

 the day previously made a hide among some tufts of rushes, 

 I went and laid up before sunrise to await the geese, which 

 arrived by degrees in flight after flight, till there must have 

 been within a mile of me, at the lowest computation, between 

 three and four thousand ; I shall never forget the sight, and 

 I lay concealed watching them for at least two hours. I could 

 not distinguish amongst them more -than one lot of about a 

 dozen Bean-Geese ; the remainder were all Grey-lags. Some 

 hundreds were within about a hundred yards, and it was 



