But since then I have often wondered what kind of dance it could have
been.

AUTUMN.

AARRE, October 7, 1890.

I had intended to send a few observations upon the wild-goose to
_Nature_, but since they have extended to quite a long letter, they go
to _Dagbladet_. It is not because I believe that they represent anything
new that no one has observed before; but I know how thoughtlessly most
of us let the sun shine, and the birds fly, without any idea of what a
refreshment it is for a man's soul to understand what he sees in Nature,
and how interesting animal life becomes when we have once learned that
there is a method and a thought in every single thing that the animal
undertakes, and what a pleasure it is to discover this thought, and
trace the beautiful reasoning power which is Nature's essence.

And thus most of us go through life, and down into a hole in the ground
like moles, without having taken any notice of the bird that flew or the
bill that sang. We believe that the small birds are sparrows, the larger
probably crows; barndoor fowls are the only ones we know definitely.

I met a lady the other day who was extremely indignant about this. She
had asked the man at whose house she was staying--a very intelligent
peasant--what kind of bird it was that she had seen in the fields. It
was evident that it was a thrush--merely a common thrush--and she
described the bird to him: it was about half as large as a pigeon, gray
and speckled with yellow; it hopped in the fields, and so on.

'Would it be the bird they call a swallow?' suggested the man.

'Not at all,' replied the lady angrily. 'I rather think it was a kind of
thrush.'

'Oh! then you had better ask my wife.'

'So she understands birds, does she?' exclaimed the lady, much
mollified.

'Yes, she is mad with them, they do so much mischief among the
cherries.'

With this my lady had to go. But the story is not yet finished; the
worst is to come.

For when, indignant at the countryman's ignorance of the bird-world, she
told all this in town, there was one very solemn gentleman who said:

'Are you sure that it was not a gull?'

This went beyond all bounds, thought my lady, and she came and
complained bitterly to me.

When wild-geese fly in good order, as they do when in the air for days
and nights together, the lines generally form the well-known plough,
with one bird at the point, and the two next