42 A YEAR OF SPORT AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



makes up for lost time with his feeding. Not only does this appl}'^ 

 during the day when feeding, it may be, on meadows or stubble 

 fields, but also at night, when these wary birds retire to some sheet 

 of water for rest. Even then there is a sleepless watch bird, whose 

 warning cry is the signal for flight. The smallest carelessness or 

 error on the part of the stalker, the placing of his foot upon stone 

 or gravel, the exposure of the smallest portion of his person, an eddy 

 of wind in the wrong direction, any one of these accidents is 

 as fatal to the sportsman's chance, when creeping up to Wild 

 Geese, as if he were stalking a red stag in the Highlands. 



However large their numbers, and however great the apparent 

 confusion when they rise, it is curious to note the rapidity with 

 which the birds get into the line which is at once formed and kept 

 with methodical accuracy and precision. There are four kinds of 

 geese which visit our shores in more or less considerable numbers, 

 and in some cases breed within their precincts, to which the 

 generic term "Wild Geese" is applied. These are the common 

 Grey Lag Goose, the Bean Goose, the White-Fronted Goose, and 

 the Brent Goose, frequently called the Bernacle. 



The Grey Lag, the largest of the group, is not a winter visitor 

 only, for, according to Mr. St. John, he found numerous nests of 

 this species on the Sutherlandshire lochs ; and Mr. Milner, in his 

 "Account of the Birds of Sutherlandshire and Ross," says that he 

 found their eggs on Lochs Shin, Assynt, and Naver in the former 

 county. They chiefly breed along the coasts of Norway and in some 

 parts of Sweden, and are occasionally found in winter in some of 

 the midland counties of Ireland. Their food consists for the most 

 part of grass, and the tender and succulent shoots of young wheat, 

 oats, or barley. The amount of destruction that a flock of Wild 



