The Goose.-] OF ORKNEY. 135 



sold to the merchant fetch about eightpence or tenpence, sel- 

 dom above the last price. 



When cured many of them are sent to the Leith market, 

 where they sell tolerably well ; but the feathers of geese make 

 a very considerable article in our Orkney exports : these are 

 sold at about tenpence or a shilling per pound, and the de- 

 mand is still great for them. We have not here got into the 

 method of plucking our geese till they are killed, which is 

 in November, when there is a general slaughter of the birds 

 of the same year, and none kept but a few for Christmas, and 

 the brood geese for next season. 



Species 3. — The Bernach. 



Bernacle or Clakis, Wil. Om. Rail Si/n. Av. 137. Sib. Scot, 21. Brit. 

 Zool. 451. Anas Erythropus, (mas), Lin. Sys. 197. 



The Bernacle sometimes appears here in flocks in spring, 

 I suppose in their way to the north country ; for any thing I 

 can learn, do not build here, and but touch here by chance. I 

 met with a skin of one of those which was killed out of a flock 

 which had hovered here a while in their passage. The bill was 

 short and black, with oblong nostrils ; the head small ; the 

 neck long and slender ; the face and cheeks white ; the rest 

 of the head, the throat, and breast, as also the back, a good 

 black ; the root of the tail white ; the tail black ; the wings 



