204 BIRDS AND MAN 



an egg, in the laying season, to some visitor as 

 a special mark of esteem. 



It was a grand spectacle, when the entire 

 flock, numbering upwards of a thousand, stood 

 up on the marsh and raised their necks on a 

 person's approach. It was grand to hear them, 

 too, when, as often happened, they all burst out 

 in a great screaming concert. I can hear that 

 mighty uproar now ! 



With regard to the character of the sound : 

 we have seen in a former chapter that the poet 

 Cowper thought not meanly of the domestic 

 grey goose as a vocahst, when heard on a 

 common or even in a farmyard. But there is 

 a vast difference in the effect produced on the 

 mind when the sound is heard amid its natural 

 surroundings in silent desert places. Even 

 hearing them as I did, from a distance, on that 

 great marsh, where they existed almost in a 

 state of nature, the sound was not comparable 

 to that of the perfectly wild bird in his native 

 haunts. The cry of the wild grey -lag was 

 described by Robert Gray in his Birds of the 

 West of Scotland. Of the bird's voice he writes : 

 "My most recent experiences (August 1870) 



