day are not more precise, or more perfectly carried out. 
During the whole flight not a sound, save the swishing of 
their wings can be heard. The marvel of it all is beyond 
the range of words, nor can one express the peculiar delight 
such a sight affords. 
Why is it that ducks and geese commonly fly either in 
Indian file, or in a roughly V-shaped formation, with the 
apex of the V forward? Why do they not fly all abreast ? 
One cannot say, but they never do. 
Some mention must be made here of the surprising 
numbers in which geese, of some species, congregate. Writing 
of the Brent goose, in his Bird Life of the Borders, Mr. Abel 
Chapman—and there are few men who can write with such 
authority on the subject—tells us: “ Just at dark the whole 
host rise on the wing together, and make for the open sea. 
In the morning they have come in by companies and battalions, 
but at night they go out in one solid army; and a fine sight 
it is to witness their departure. The whole host, perhaps ten 
thousand strong, here massed in dense phalanxes, elsewhere 
in columns tailing off into long skeins, V’s or rectilineal 
formations of every conceivable shape (but always with a 
certain formation)—out they go, full one hundred yards 
high, while their loud clanging, defiance—‘‘ honk, honk,— 
torrock, torrock,’”’ and its running accompaniment of lower 
croaks and shrill bi-tones, resounds for miles around.” 
185 
