4o Geese of Europe and Asia 



grazing in the young wheat till 9 o'clock in the morning, and back again at their pastures 

 by 4 p.m. 



"When not out feeding they spend their time dozing or dawdling about on the 

 margin of some lake or the bank of some river, always by preference choosing some island 

 in these for their noontide siesta. Unless disturbed, they very rarely take to the water; 

 where you see a flock swimming about in mid-stream of one of our larger rivers, or in the 

 open water of some broad, between the hours of ten and three, you may generally safely 

 conclude that they have been recently fired at, or frightened in some way. 



"They feed exclusively, so far as my experience goes, on tender shoots of grass, 

 young corn, and other spring crops, and on grain of all kinds — gram, when nearly ripe, 

 being a great attraction to them. Generally, they are pretty well on the alert when feeding 

 inland, but in parts of the country where the people have no guns, and there are no native 

 or European sportsmen about, they get very bold ; and when put up at one end of a 

 field, flutter lazily away and settle a couple of hundred yards away in another field, and give 

 the cultivators a good deal of trouble, since three or four hundred of these birds will clear 

 off an incredible amount of grain in a morning. In such localities you may with a 

 common blanket, donned native-fashion over head and body, walk up to within thirty yards 

 of a flock, and then judiciously startling them get a couple of effective shots into the mass 

 as it rises. In such cases never fire until they have risen, and are about the level of your 

 face. A shot on the ground, amongst the crops, with an ordinary twelve-bore, may yield 

 three, generally only two, often only one ; the same shot fired when the flock is on the wing, 

 and about your level, will account for from five to eight. I have often got ten, and once 

 or twice more, with two barrels in such cases. 



" Where, however, they have been once thus shot at, you will not get near them again 

 for some time without further precautions, but even when on the alert you may often stalk 

 them behind a horse and get to within forty or fifty yards. In such cases it is best to make 

 sure of your one or two birds on the ground with the first shot, as you will seldom have 

 time for more than one shot after they rise. 



" Although they rise rather awkwardly and slowly, with violent and noisy flappings 

 of their wings, they fly very strongly and easily when once well off, and I do not know a 

 more beautiful sight than the sudden and rapid descent of a large flock from high in the 

 air to some sandbank. The flock comes along in sober state, circles round decorously once 

 or twice, and then suddenly, as though all hands had been piped to skylark, down they come 

 with incredible rapidity, twisting and turning, with an ease and grace for which no one could 

 at other times have given them credit. They swim well, no doubt, and dive when hard 

 pressed fairly well, though they cannot keep long under water. . . . 



" When moving any considerable distance they fly high, and usually in a single line, 

 or in a >, with the point foremost ; but when merely changing ground they often fly in an 

 irregular flock. 



" They are met with in parties of all sizes, from a single pair to more than a thousand, 

 but flocks of from thirty to a hundred are most commonly seen in Upper India. All our 

 geese prefer rivers to tanks and lakes, but of all the species the grey-lag is least rarely 

 seen about these latter." 



Of crosses in the wild state between the grey-lag and other species I know nothing, 

 but that the wild bird breeds freely enough with its domesticated relations is well known. 

 Tame grey-lag pair with domestic Chinese geese {Cygnopsis cygnoides), and also with white- 



