CHAPTER XIX. 



Anecdotes of Former Days. 



A WILD-GOOSE chase proverbially depends much upon 

 chance, and in that respect may be said to resemble the 

 modern Point-to-Point Steeplechase. The great gathering 

 place of wild fowl in the North, Strensall Common, was 

 sold a few years ago by my cousin, Mr. Leonard Thompson, 

 of Sheriff Hutton Park, to the Government, by whom 

 it was, alas, drained, in order to make it a second 

 Aldershot, and the wild geese, wild swans, green-shanks, 

 red-shanks, ruffs, and reeves, and other commoner sorts 

 that frequented it, have now become only another historical 

 memory. 



The geese used to arrive at dusk, in " skeins," till 

 many hundreds were gathered together, but they only 

 passed the night there, and went off at dawn to their 

 various feeding-places for the day. They chiefly fed 

 on the warplands along the Humber, but in the spring- 

 time numbers used to frequent the Wolds, and other 

 hilly districts for many miles round, to feed upon the 

 young growing wheat. 



The shooting of the Common was given for many 

 years to the Ptev. Frank Simpson, Vicar of Foston, and 

 that keen naturalist and sportsman used to spend hours 

 and days in hiding-places on the marshy land, observing 

 the habits of the various wild birds that frequented it. 



