struck us that by collecting a number o f 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 o f 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 o f 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 o f shooting them.
“ Imagine, then, half a dozen ‘ good men and true’ convening at the comfortable inn o f 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 confusion; for the standing orders are that we are to fish the numerous detached lochs until a dead
calm day should permit o f 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 o f water ; and ‘ Donald ’ reports that ‘ there is an awful lot o f them.’ So with a night-cap o f
hot toddy we turn in early to bed, and are cruelly roused out o f 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 lias thrown off his foggy mantle, showing the clear outline of his bald head against the blue sky—
always an omen o f 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
o f 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 o f the old birds,
after a premonitory screech to show they have made up their minds, taking wing across the line o f 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 o f recoil, cuts down lanes o f 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.”
“ N ote 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 o f the neck and back chocolate-brown, each feather margined at the tip with brownish
g rey; lower part o f the back g rey; 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 o f 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 in size.”
Mr. Dresser found the Grey Lag Goose breeding all along the shores o f the Gulf o f Bothnia up to Tornea,
and procured the eggs at the end o f May. “ In some o f 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 o f 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.