324 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



feast of the intronisation of the reverende father in God, George 

 Nevil, Archbishop of York and Chancellour of England in the VI. 

 of the reigne of Kyng Edwarde the fourth." Among " the goodly 

 provision made for the same " were four hundred woodcocks. 

 These were "rost" and "baked," the latter to be eaten "with 

 salt and cinnamond." Even in these days of cold chambers and 

 rapid transport, it would probably not be easy to collect four 

 hundred woodcock on a given day. 



There were plenty of grouse and black game about duck, 

 mallard, teal, widgeon and pochard, but few snipe. These had 

 in November been in abundance but were now scarce, the then 

 cold weather having probably suggested an early departure for 

 warmer quarters. Those which remained were greatly scattered 

 and very wild. 



"The machine is ready" was the message brought into the 

 gun-room one morning early, and we were soon en route to a 

 place some miles away where bernicle geese were said to congre- 

 gate. Wet and stormy as usual, the island did not by any means 

 look its best ; the tiny village seemed totally deserted, the hotel 

 used by summer visitors but now shut up looked terribly 

 forlorn ; nobody seemed about, the day apparently was too moist 

 even for the natives, the only moving creatures being some highly- 

 bred and very picturesque Highland cattle and handsome sheep 

 with black faces and legs and beautiful silky wool. The bernicles 

 came ashore in considerable numbers to feed on stubble and grass 

 fields near the coast, but not now in the numbers as described by 

 Dr. John Walker in his "Economical History of the Hebrides," 

 1808. " The crops of S. Uist, Benbecula and N. Uist are some- 

 times almost entirely destroyed by vast flocks of wild geese which 

 haunt these islands and their neighbourhood. The wild goose 

 never alights in a field of corn, but always in the neighbouring 

 grass field, and from thence walks into the corn. The farmers, 

 therefore, totally surround their cornfields with a heather rope 

 two to three inches thick, laid upon the ground, and this the 

 birds do not pass over, unless much pressed by hunger." 



The geese, some thirty or forty, were where we had hoped to 

 find them, feeding on the stubbles. The plan of campaign 

 hastily settled proved successful ; after a long stalk behind walls 

 and hillocks, creeps through very " soft " ground, scrambles over 

 slippery rock and through slithery masses of seaweed at low 



