BRENT GEESE IN SCOTLAND 217 



seen in North America. But it is so far only a probability, 

 and until we know more of the facts of migration we can only 

 conjecture that we are supplied directly from the nearest 

 breeding grounds. If, therefore, this is the case, and accepting 

 the evidence of naturalists that in Arctic Europe birds of all 

 phases of plumage, light, dark, and intermediate, breed 

 together, how does it come to be a fact, and it is a fact which 

 can be proved by receiving birds from the localities I 

 mention, that the light-breasted and the dark-breasted birds 

 occupy, broadly speaking, different areas in Scotland. 



I spent the year 1916 in Arctic Europe, and though I was 

 convinced that the spring and autumn migrations of Bean, 

 Pink-footed, and probably White-fronted Geese proceed 

 directly round or across Northern Finmark on the way to 

 and from the breeding grounds, I could get no information 

 of the Brent Geese although these birds were nesting only 

 seventy miles away on Spitzbergen. I fancy that both the 

 Spitzbergen birds and all those hatched on the islands to the 

 east proceed outwards and then south across the North Sea, 

 and do not, as other Geese do, skirt the coast lands of 

 northern Norway and then cut across. 



On another point I quite agree with Mr Chapman, that 

 all phases of plumage of the Brent Goose are merely light, 

 dark, or intermediate forms of colour in one and the same 

 bird, and that all breed together. Any one who has made 

 a close study of Ducks and Geese will find that in many 

 species these light or dark forms are well marked. Take, for 

 instance, the White-fronted Goose. In some examples on 

 the breast there is scarcely a black feather, whilst in others 

 the whole of the breast is entirely black ; but these latter 

 are rare. 



The Cuckoo at Poula Isle. I do not know if there are 

 any reliable records of the visitation of the Cuckoo to this island. 

 Some years ago a correspondence arose in the Shetland press 

 as to whether the bird ever did visit the Isles ; but I am 

 informed that it occurs annually on both its spring and autumn 

 migrations at Fair Isle. A writer to the Shetland Times 



