46 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
by taking cover (if need be, by digging a hole), and 
sending the pinnace on an encircling cruise to drive the 
geese in. In less than an hour I have secured eight 
geese thus. Towards dusk, again, incoming shots may 
be had by lying in wait at the spots where geese are 
wont to pass the night. These spots, however, are apt 
to be more or less awash, so that this evening-flighting 
may prove a wet and dirty job. Nevertheless, the 
wondrous scenes it reveals, when the whole western after¬ 
glow is amove with a welter of converging hosts, and 
when vespertinal silences are shocked by the crash of 
an anserine chorus from ten thousand throats—these 
things alone are a sufficing reward. 
Frequently the battalions of geese are accompanied 
by long-drawn files of cranes—equally strident. The 
two denominations, however, maintain strictly separate 
camps. 
Most of the geese shot thus are of the Egyptian 
species ( Ckenalopex\ An old gander exceeds 6 lb. in 
weight: the females average 4! lb. The spur-winged 
geese are more than twice this size and prefer to roost 
dry-foot. One evening, having noticed a well-frequented 
roosting-place, by taking post just before sundown, I 
shot three of these big geese in half an hour’s vigil: one 
enormous gander (whose head I sketch) weighed 13^ lb. 
good, a second \2\ lb., while a goose fell slightly below 
12 lb. These weights far exceed those of any European 
wild-geese. 
The spurwing (like all the goose-tribe) normally feed 
by day, grazing on the scantiest herbage, and roost by 
night (usually on the drier islands and on firmer ground 
than the oozes preferred by Chenalopex). But exception¬ 
ally, and during full moon only, these geese also fly far 
afield by night, as, on one occasion, we learnt thus. 
We had missed our way back to the river, and while 
rambling, half-lost, in the woods, a pack of geese came 
winging right overhead in the gloaming. Upon seeing 
