THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
With wildfowl space scarcely counts. They are hardly ever stationary 
for long ; since, besides their regular biannual migrations in spring 
and autumn, they are kept continually on the move all the winter by the 
exigencies of their food-supply. A week’s hard frost, congealing lakes and 
marshes, shallows, and even tidal oozes, cuts off their subsistence — 
they must shift. So soon as the Baltic and Danish Sounds are frozen up, 
their feathered denizens must seek refuge in Dutch and British waters ; 
while, should the frost extend beyond, the enforced journey must be 
prolonged to France, Spain and the Mediterranean — even to Africa. These 
movements continue — to and fro, north and south, according to climatic 
conditions — throughout the entire winter. They may extend to hundreds, 
if not thousands, of miles ; yet they are not migrations in the ordinarily 
accepted sense of that term, nor can they be co -related except only with 
the weather-conditions at various points. 
Bearing these important facts in mind, I found it useful, during my 
keener fowling days, to study the “ navigation reports ” in the various 
shipping newspapers. When the submarine cables reported “ Cronstadt 
icebound ” one might make provisional arrangements for a fowling trip. 
If, a day or two later, Riga and other Baltic ports were telegraphed “ closed 
by ice,” one might safely start. Finally, when navigation ceased at Copen- 
hagen, then you might expect the geese for certain within twenty -four 
hours. These are forecasts that never fail. 
Even the seasonal migrations of wildfowl are far less regular than 
those of most land-birds, and present many strange anomalies. Thus 
the brent geese arrive in Holland by the end of September ; on the western 
coast of France by the first week in December ; yet on our north-east coast 
of England, we rarely have them in bulk before the New Year — often not 
till mid -January — and once they arrived by thousands in March — what 
time, in normal winters, they begin to think of returning northwards. 
In the Solent Colonel Hawker regarded their appearance any time 
before Christmas as being noteworthy. 
An instance illustrating the precision with which wildfowl instinctively 
(and without aid of submarine cables) anticipate climatic changes occurring 
hundreds of miles away, is given in my ‘‘ Bird -life on the Borders ” 
(second edition, p. 430). Eight wild swans had taken up their quarters in 
January, 1893, on a sheet of water within easy view of a railway connecting 
two big towns, exciting much comment and discussion. Early in February 
a local newspaper sent a representative to inquire my opinion. I told him 
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