THE GOOSING 225 
fronts behaved exactly alike. First they laid out their 
long necks flat on the water as their fellows did on 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 then—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 brent 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 water. The boats did not dare 
close in for fear the geese should break. It was a 
ticklish moment—the geese would not make the land. 
At last a single old goose—a bean he was—stepped 
out and ran up the bank. He was quickly followed by 
one or two more, and then by the first of the brent. 
And now that they had started they went quickly 
enough, scrambling after one another and heading into 
the net. Over the green they ran like a flock of 
domestic geese. Sometimes they aimed for right or 
left, but then the children showed themselves and the 
geese were turned. 
The last bird was in, and then we closed the rear. 
Not a brent had flown, not a brent had dived, not one 
escaped. Of all that army every bird was in the net— 
a dense, black, moving mass. 
P 
