From Peter Croft's response: "I often speculated on why the gun had been ordered with that specification. Across the Firth of Forth there are large numbers of greylag and pink foot geese in Fife and there also numbers to be found east of Edinburgh. Both these areas have rich arable farming and the geese flight into the fields to feed. It's my belief that the gun was ordered with 28" barrels to make it handier to use when hiding in a ditch or hedge alongside the fields."
On both trips to Scotland for driven birds in December 2004 and 2006, we stayed in this exact area, just south of St. Andrews. Although we did not hunt geese, his detailed comments on the habits and local hunting methods (e.g., "ditch gunning") for Greylag and pink-footed geese are precisely descriptive of the style and type of pursuing them. They were very abundant and the locals very adept at taking their limits, particularly at night. which is (or was) legal there at that time. Their calls are very distinctive and reminded me of a comined "yodel" of our Snow geese mixed with the gutteral trill of Atlantic brant.
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