The Boosters

All last week, as the weather warmed, squadrons of Canadian geese formed up on a sheltered arm of Long Island Sound near Greenwich, Conn., for their annual flight to the north. More than a hundred of the big grey honkers had wintered in the cove, which has been set aside as a game refuge, but each day a V of 30 or 40 birds took off, circled, and disappeared. Early one afternoon late in the week, only one formation was left. As Captain Amos L. Horst, secretary of the Wildlife Restoration Foundation, watched, these birds, too, took to the air.

All, that is, except one goose, which apparently had broken one wing during the winter. The cripple paddled disconsolately toward shore. At that, two geese left the airborne squadron, landed, and fell in on either side of their waterbound comrade. All three skittered across the water in an attempted takeoff, with the two rescuers obviously trying to help get the cripple into the air. The attempt failed. The two helper-geese tried once more. Then they gave up, took off themselves, fell in with their north-bound flight and flew away, leaving the cripple bobbing in the waves alone.

The abandoned bird's power failure, however, was not entirely unfortunate. It had not only furnished pop-eyed bird lovers a rare example of goose discipline, but had provided the cripple himself with an enviable career. He is henceforth safe from being plugged by gunners, certain of being rejoined with his friends in the winters, and is sure of handouts from residents along the shore until the day he finally topples over, dead, of the effects of rich, full station-wagon living.

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