struck us that by collecting a number of boats and placing a good gun in each, a very exciting battue might 
be organized. This we have now carried out for many seasons with varying success ; but oftener than once 
we have bagged from fifty to sixty Geese in a day, and had in doing so an amount of hard shooting and 
pulling to satisfy the most ambitious. 
“ About the 20th of July is the proper time to meet for this sport, as then the young birds, although 
nearly the size of the old Geese, are not strong on the wing ; indeed, after they are able to take long flights, 
there is little to be done in the way of shooting them. 
“ Imagine, then, half a dozen ‘good men and true’ convening at the comfortable inn of Achintoul, within 
six miles of the lochs, a few days beforehand, armed with all calibres, from S., with his mighty 8-bore 
breech-loader, down to the Major’s sharp-shooting 16. Rods, reels, boots, and baskets lumber the lobby in 
sweet confu.sion ; for the standing orders are that we are to fish the numerous detached lochs until a dead 
calm day should permit of our properly carrying out the chasse. 
“ The keepers on the upper lochs have driven down the Geese, and concentrated them on the lowest and 
largest sheet of water ; and ‘ Donald ’ reports that ‘ there is an awful lot of them.’ So with a night-cap of 
hot toddy we turn in early to bed, and are cruelly roused out of glorious slumbers at 5 a.m. by heavy 
knuckles on the door. Up we jump, and take an anxious look at the horizon. All seems serene; and Ben 
Griam has thrown off his foggy mantle, showing the clear outline of his bald head against the blue sky — 
always an omen of settled weather. Bitters (that horrid Celtic habit, which Saxons laugh at but soon so 
kindly fall into), followed by breakfast, are soon despatched. Guns, ammunition, and lunch have been packed 
in a cart, and under careful hands are jolting their way to the lochs over a track which does the double duty 
of a road in summer and a water-course in winter ! 
“ Every glass is out to scan the water, and Geese are counted by the hundred ; so, making sure that the 
shore and outlets are all properly guarded, we embark, a gun in each boat, and form line, with a proper 
distance Intervening, and the lightest boats on the flanks and a little in advance, so as to head the Geese 
should they attempt to break. Thus we pull gently down the loch until we get so near the Geese that the 
boats can safely close upon them. The birds get very restless, and head up and down in long strings ; but 
the flanking boats stop them, and we are within range. The battue is soon opened by some of the old birds, 
after a premonitory screech to show they have made up their minds, taking wing across the line of boats. 
Bang ! bang ! bang ! and down comes an old gander, with a flop sufficient to sink the little dingy underneath ; 
and ‘ first blood to the oily gunner ! ’ comes cheerily across the water ; every boat opens fire, fast and furious, 
and the plucky owner of No. 8 bore, careless of recoil, cuts down lanes of Geese, and deafens his assistant 
loader, who after each discharge feels if his head is on and puts in a fresh cartridge. All order is now at an 
end ; the birds separate into small lots over the loch, and each boat cuts out an Independent course.” 
“ Note of two Irish Grey Lag Geese received from Lord Enniskillen, December 15th, 1868. — One, a male, 
weighed ten pounds ; the other, a female, seven pounds and a half. The male had the head and neck light 
chocolate-brown ; back of the neck and back chocolate-brown, each feather margined at the tip with brownish 
grey ; lower part of the hack grey ; scapularies very dark chocolate-brown, each feather narrowly edged with 
greyish white ; shoulders, lesser wing-coverts and those of the greater coverts nearest the spurious wing, and 
the spurious wing itself light pure grey, each feather margined with still paler grey ; three upper rows of 
the greater wing-coverts brown, tipped with greyish white, the lower and largest row conspicuously margined 
anteriorly and at the tip with greyish white ; primaries and secondaries dark chocolate, with white shafts 
and the first four washed with grey ; upper tail-coverts white, forming a zone ; external tail-feathers white, 
the central ones dark chocolate in the middle, the rest white ; abdomen pale brownish white, with here and 
there small patches of black at the extremities of the feathers ; vent and under tail-coverts white ; bill very 
deeply tinged with pink towards the tip, which is defended with a large greyish white nail ; irides hazel, 
surrounded with a thick pink lash ; feet light pinkish flesh-colour. 
“ The female resembles the male in colour, but is destitute of the black markings on the chest, and the 
grey of the rump is not so pure ; she is also conspicuously less iu size.” 
Mr. Dresser found the Grey Lag Goose breeding all along the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia up to Toruea, 
and procured the eggs at the end of May. “ In some of the northern towns the peasant women make a 
trade of catching the young birds and selling them in the market at prices varying from 20 kopecks upwards. 
They are easily reared and quite take the place of tame geese in some towns.” He asked “ one old woman 
how she obtained them ; and she replied, by watching the time the old geese leave the nest in the evening 
and proceed to the water (as they always have their nests far from the shores); and by keeping in the vicinity 
every evening during the hatching-season, she almost invariably met the old birds leading the young to the 
water, and had no difficulty in catching the latter.” 
The principal figure in the accompanying Plate is a male, about two thirds the natural size. 
DSI 
