298 WILD FOWL SUOOriNG. 



of pui'e white, as we gazed at the huddled bunches of 

 suow-geese, standing closely together, forming tents of 

 the purest white, we imagined them the legions of a 

 vast encampment. 



How often that sight has returned to me, and how I 

 have wished that nature had endowed me with the 

 skill to have sketched, then reproduced in oil that grand 

 ■scene, for I have always felt that it was the acme, the 

 ■extreme, the most picturesquely beautiful of any I had 

 «ver seen of wild life. 



We had a span of yo'iing horses ; they were fiery and 

 jestless ; they were anxious to go, and the wind blow- 

 ing fresh, the ground hard, smooth and free from ruts, 

 we told the driver to let them run. Off they went like 

 the wind, toward the geese. A few preliminary honks, 

 and then a thousand gray bodies moved closely together 

 and stretched up their long black necks in wonder and 

 affright. As we neared them, from a thousand throats 

 discordant sounds were uttered by the frightened birds. 

 We gained on, them, but their long, slow sweep of wide 

 wings was too much for speedy horses, and the field was 

 soon left to our control and occupancy. 



It was extremely foolish to have done this, but 

 carried away with excitement and thinking they would 

 return again later in the afternoon, we drove them out 

 thoroughly alarmed. 



Our blind we made in the centre of the fields far 

 from the fence. We at first thought it impossible to 

 make one that would conceal us, and not frighten the 

 igeese. I had noticed a sprinkling of corn stalks scat- 

 tered here and tliere on the black ground, and we de- 

 cided to have a blind. We spread an old horse blanket 

 ■on the damp ground, got some hay, a few corn stiilks. 



