LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WILD FOWL 243 



We first met with the pretty ashy gray goslings on July 14, but Koenlg 

 mentions having seen them on July 4 and 10, so that probably the normal time 

 for fresh eggs is during the first fortnight of June. The sailors on our boat 

 succeeded in rearing one gosling, providing freshly cut pieces of turf daily and 

 allowing the bird to feed itself. 



On July 17 a flock of about 60 geese, which had shed their flight feathers 

 and were temporarily unable to fly, was met with on a lagoon up the Sanen 

 River. They kept close together in a compact body, the barnacles usually lead- 

 ing and the brent and pink-footed following. When the flock had been fired 

 at several times and about 18 specimens secured, the pink-footed geese sepa- 

 rated themselves from the rest of the party and led the way toward land, 

 running with considerable speed and soon putting themselves out of danger, 

 an example soon followed by the rest. 



Mr. Ekblaw writes to me : 



As soon as the young are hatched they hurry to sea. They dive and swim 

 agilely almost as soon as they reach the water. Several broods of young are 

 wont to congregate together, the mothers aiding one another in vigilant 

 guidance and guard over the flock. They are exceedingly shy, and it is well- 

 nigh impossible to approach them except by surprise. They grow and develop 

 fast, so that by mid-September they are ready for their departure. As soon as 

 the ice begins to form in the fjords the brant begin to leave. By October 1 

 the last long, low-flying files of migrating brant have passed the outer capes ; 

 almost nine months slip by before they appear again. 



Plumages. — I have never seen the downy young of the brant, but 

 it is described in Witherby's Handbook (1921) as follows: 



Down of crown, center of nape, upper parts and sides of body pale mouse 

 gray, some tipped grayish white ; patch on lores and lines above eye sepia ; 

 chin, throat, and rest of neck white ; remaining under parts ashy white, down 

 with dusky-brown bases. 



The Juvenal plumage during the first fall is similar in a general 

 way to that of the adult, except that the black areas are duller and 

 more brownish, the white neck patches are lacking, the feathers of 

 the scapulars, and median wing coverts are broadly edged with 

 buffy white, and those of the back and other coverts are more 

 narrowly edged with the same; the secondaries are also narrowly 

 edged with white. Molting and wear of the contour feathers, es- 

 pecially about the head and neck, during the winter produce an 

 advance toward maturity; the white neck patches appear in Janu- 

 ary, but the wings retain the ju venal characters until the following 

 summer. A complete molt in summer produces a plumage indis- 

 tinguishable from that of the adult. 



Food. — According to Witherby's Handbook (1921) the food of 

 the brant on its breeding grounds consists of "grass, algae, moss, 

 and stalks and leaves of arctic plants {Eriofhorum^ Ranunculus^ 

 Cerastium, Oxyria, and Saxifraga).'" The "young feed on Grami- 

 neae and Oxyria.'''' 



While on our coasts their chief food is eelgrass {Zostera marina)^ 

 which grows so extensively in our shallow bays and estuaries. At 



