'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 ones on either side of him
a little way behind.

Hitherto I have always been content with the explanation that we
received and gave one another as boys, viz., that the birds chose this
formation in order to cleave the air, like a snow-plough clearing a way.

But it suddenly occurred to me the other day that this was pure
nonsense--an association of ideas called forth by the resemblance to a
plough, which moves in earth or snow, but which has no meaning up in the
air.

What _is_ cloven air? And who gets any benefit by it?

Yes, if the geese flew as they walk--one directly behind the
other--there might perhaps, in a contrary wind, be some little shelter
and relief for the very last ones. But they fly nearly side by side in
such a manner that each one, from first to last, receives completely
'uncloven' air right in the breast; there can be no suggestion that it
is easier for the last than for the first bird to cut a way.

The peculiar order of flight has quite another meaning, viz., to keep
the flock together on the long and fatiguing journey; and if we start