NOTES 77 



Lothian, on 28th February 1891, is likewise a dark-plumaged bird. 

 The others were, I believe, similarly coloured; had they been 

 otherwise, I would almost certainly have made a note of the fact. 

 The first occasion on which I noted pale-bellied birds here was in 

 February 1895. On the 9th of that month I had an excellent view, 

 with the aid of binoculars, of ten Brent Geese standing at the tide- 

 edge a short distance east of South Queensferry. As the entry 

 in my diary states, all had light underparts except one, which was 

 dark underneath. Specimens obtained during the last ten years 

 that I have examined have invariably been the light "form."' In 

 February 191 2 several were shot near North Berwick, Aberlady, 

 and Dunbar. One of these a male from Aberlady Bay secured 

 by Mr O. H. Wild, is, I understand, the pale-breasted bird from 

 "Firth of Forth" referred to in Misses Rintoul and Baxter's article. 

 A similar female, shot on 3rd February 191 2, as it rose from a ditch 

 on a farm near Yetholm, Roxburghshire, is in Mr J. W. Bowhill's 

 collection. Mr Bowhill has also two both pale-bellied birds 

 from the Moray Firth about ten years ago. The late Robert Gray 

 possessed a Brent Goose from the River Tay, 10th February 

 1879, which he regarded as the "Atlantic form though somewhat 

 dark." This, I presume, is the pale-breasted example from the Tay 

 recorded by Misses Rintoul and Baxter. Of course both " forms " 

 vary to some degree, but I can only recall one specimen which 

 could properly be said to be intermediate. 



It is somewhat significant that the figures of the Brent Goose in 

 the works of most of the earlier writers on British birds (Willughby, 

 Pennant, Graves, Yarrell, and possibly others) clearly represent 

 the dark-bellied form. 



Whether these dark and light "forms" of Brent are to be 

 regarded as subspecies (geographical races) or as merely phases of 

 one dimorphic species, such as we recognise in the case of the 

 Arctic Skua and the Fulmar, is perhaps a debatable point. For 

 my own part I have always inclined to the latter view. Both forms 

 are stated to occu% in Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, and Taimyr 

 Peninsula ; and I cannot think birds of American origin are likely 

 to be regular and abundant winter visitors to the east coast of 

 Scotland. William Evans, Edinburgh. 



