650 
president’s address. 
The former extensive annual peat digging acted in two 
different ways upon Snipe : the locally breeding birds were 
disturbed more then than now by the greater amount of 
traffic on the common, but by the digging out of the peat, 
fresh ground used to be annually exposed,, from which the 
winter migrants could feed. 
In February, 1888, I made a goose of myself over a Ruston 
Common Gander. The ground was covered with snow, it 
was “ regular wildfowl weather ” ; my man sent in word, 
asking if he could have my gun, as a Wild Goose had just 
alighted in the field at the back of the house. Lone fowl 
being generally comparatively easy of approach, I thought 
I might as well take the gun myself, and hastened to do so ; 
meanwhile, the Goose had risen and flown across Ruston 
long common, and settled down out of gunshot from any 
covert. On my attempting to stalk him, he rose again, 
circled round, and dropped within some seventy yards of 
a fence. Having safely gained that ambush, I drew a bead 
upon his neck, one pellet severed the spinal cord, and the 
great grey bird was mine ! Once in hand I could not 
identify him with any wild species, but held my own counsel. 
After a few days hanging, I was in the very act of carrying 
him to be plucked for cooking, when a ring came to the front 
door bell, which I answered in person, bird in hand, to be 
greeted with : “ Please, sir, you ha’ shot my gander,” to 
which I replied : “ Yes, bor, 1 am sorry to say I believe 
I have ! You are just in time to have him, or half 
a sovereign — which jxm like.” The man said : “ Please, 
sir, I’ll take ther monner.” But I was not to be let off thus 
easily. Long afterwards the soft impeachment greeted me 
by road and rail : “ Who shot the Gander ? ” After this 
personal and practical experience, I learnt that tame Geese, 
and especially birds of the year, frequently take wing, on 
being let out of a morning, at their first sight of snow-clad 
ground. 
