OUR WILD GEESE 165 



they were drained. It is a matter for conjecture 

 whether it was this bird which supplied the feathers 

 for the yard-long shafts which did such terrible 

 execution in the good old days when English archers 

 drew the bowstring out to the head. One reads of 

 how the " grey goose shafts went merrily home," 

 which means that they went in at the breast and out 

 at the back — but those arrows may have been 

 feathered from other grey geese which will be 

 noticed further on. Very great confusion has existed 

 and does, I think, still exist in the minds of the 

 general public with regard to the grey geese. 

 Judging by m)' own experience, I should say that 

 not one wild goose in twenty shot in this country 

 is a genuine wild Greylag Goose ; the geese procured 

 have turned out to be birds of a different build and 

 colour. They were grey geese, but not the Grey- 

 lags. 



The Bean Goose is a migrant which visits our 

 shores in very great numbers ; in fact it is the " Wild 

 Goose " as known to shore-shooters. Its habits are 

 similar to those of the Greylag. 



Very awkward mistakes, and sad ones too some of 

 them, have been made sometimes when these birds 

 have been feeding on the saltings and marshes close 

 to the tide, for at certain seasons the geese will 

 feed at night, and then is the time to go after them. 

 On one occasion a fowler shot his horse by mistake, 

 and at another time a man, who was well known to 

 me, shot his own son. Such incidents were once 

 only too common. Fowl, feeding at night, bunch 



