CANADA GOOSE. I 3 



are white, as are the sides of the rump and upper tail-coverts ; 

 on the flanks are faint grey bars. The bill and legs are black, 

 the irides dark brown. The blacks in the old bird are replaced 

 by brown in the young, and the whites are suffused with buff 

 and spotted ; the barring on the flanks is often more distinct. 

 Length, 25 ins. Wing, 16 ins. Tarsus, 2'2 ins. 



Canada Goose. Branta canadensis (Linn.). 



The Canada Goose (Plate 5) is usually denied a place in the 

 British avifauna on the ground that when it has been recorded it 

 must have ** escaped from captivity or from ornamental waters.' 

 The bird, which has several well-marked forms, is a native of 

 North America, migrating so far south as the Gulf of Mexico. 

 Our bird is referable to the large eastern race. 



Though there is no actual proof that the Canada Goose ever 

 reaches us as a migrant, birds which have appeared in the 

 Hebrides may have been truly wild. Yarrell included it as 

 British because it has been known as an introduced species 

 for more than two centuries. hideed it is, at any rate in 

 certain areas, so firmly established as a free-living and not 

 domestic bird, that its claim seems to be as sound as that of 

 the Mute Swan, the reintroduced Capercaillie, the Little Owl, 

 and the Pheasant. 



The Canada differs from the smaller Barnacle in the pattern 

 and extent of the white on the face and the smaller amount of 

 black on breast and neck. The upper parts are brown, not 

 grey. In many parts of our islands the bird is merely a 

 straggler, always treated with suspicion, but in East Anglia, 

 Lancashire, and Cheshire, and a few other areas, it lives a wild 

 life, nesting on the borders of broads, meres, or pools, and living 

 gregariously during the greater part of the year. In Cheshire 

 no one claims them, no one attempts to capture and mark 

 them ; flocks of a score to two hundred birds wander from 

 mere to mere. 



