GEESE 203 



years, and of how I first became an admirer 

 of the familiar domestic goose. Never since have 

 I looked on it in such favourable conditions. 



Two miles from my home there stood an 

 old mud-buUt house, thatched with rushes, and 

 shaded by a few ancient, half-dead trees. Here 

 lived a very old woman with her two unmarried 

 daughters, both withered and grey as their 

 mother ; indeed, in appearance, they were three 

 amiable sister witches, aU very very old. The 

 high ground on which the house stood sloped 

 down to an extensive reed- and rush -grown 

 marsh, the source of an important stream ; it was 

 a paradise of wild fowl, swan, roseate spoonbill, 

 herons white and herons grey, ducks of half-a- 

 dozen species, snipe and painted snipe, and stilt, 

 plover and godwit; the glossy ibis, and the 

 great crested blue ibis with a powerful voice. 

 All these interested, I might say fascinated, me 

 less than the tame geese that spent most of 

 their time in or on the borders of the marsh 

 in the company of the wild birds. The three 

 old women were so fond of their geese that they 

 would not part with one for love or money ; the 

 most they would ever do would be to present 



