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 — ^teUs 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 taihng 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." 



49 



