150 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



heather, bracken, bushes, etc., which makes them ideal 

 nesting quarters for Geese, Duck, and other birds. The 

 Grey Lag lays from five to seven eggs, and the male is 

 always in attendance on the female during incubation and 

 will attack any bird or beast that comes near, routing 

 even the Great Black-backed Gull. When the young are 

 hatched they are taken out immediately to feed on the 

 grass; the female leading and the male behind, guarding the 

 pretty little balls of green and yellow fluff which waddle 

 along between them. Then they are taken to the water, 

 where the same formation is observed. The young grow 

 like magic ; in about a fortnight they are long-legged and 

 ungainly, and continue to be so till they are fully feathered, 

 which is not till September, when the broods form into large 

 flocks or skeins. The geese are very easily domesticated. 

 I set seven eggs under a hen and they all hatched out ; 

 the young did not breed or roam about much the first year, 

 but the second year three of the females nested and hatched 

 their young. Two bred near the house, but the other dis- 

 appeared for weeks ; then one morning we noticed two 

 geese on the loch with seven young but thought they were 

 regular wild ones, till my wife went out to feed the poultry, 

 when the female took her brood up to feed among the others 

 as if nothing had happened. The gander was a wild one, 

 but by the third day he was feeding along with the hens 

 quite close to my wife. 



Bean Goose. Bean Geese are very rare in the Outer 

 Hebrides, but I have shot one or two in South Uist. 



The White-fronted Goose. Is a winter visitor to 

 South Uist, arriving about the middle of October and 

 remaining till April ; they feed in wet marshes on certain 

 kinds of roots and weeds. White-fronted Geese are not 

 quite as difficult to stalk as the Grey Lag, as they do not 

 keep a sentry so regularly, but depend very much on small 

 birds to warn them of approaching danger. They have 

 increased extraordinarily in South Uist, the first three years 

 I was there they were very rare, and in a few years' time 

 came in thousands. 



(^To be continued.^ 



