282 DUCK GROUP 



beneath, with the checks and throat whitish. In the typical form of 

 the brent goose the abdomen is dark grey in its anterior part, but there 

 is a variety in which this is white. According to some writers, these 

 two forms arc not even racially, let alone specifically, separable, as 

 transitional specimens are said to be not uncommon ; but recent 

 opinion tends to regard them as distinct, in which case the light-bellied 

 form should be known as B. f:;laucogaster. Be this as it may, it appears 

 that while the dark-bellied form is the commoner in Novaia Zemlia, 

 Spitzbergen, and Kolguev, the white-bellied phase is the prevalent one 

 from Greenland to the Parry Islands, and in eastern North America 

 in winter. Eastwards the brent is known to range as far as the 

 Taim\-r Peninsula in Siberia, but as the Pacific is approached it is re- 

 placed by the closely allied Brant a nigricans, characterised by having 

 the abdomen nearly as dark as the breast. A goose shot in Norfolk in 

 1907 has been referred to the American form. 



The most northern Arctic lands appear to form the breeding-resorts 

 of the brent goose ; the British Museum possessing specimens of the 

 eggs from Grinnell-land, Greenland, and Spitzbergen. To the British 

 Islands the species is only a winter-visitor, arriving from the end of 

 September onwards, and usually departing by April. Although com- 

 paratively uncommon on the coast of both Scotland and England, as 

 well as on the southern shores of the latter, on the west side of Great 

 Britain, and likewise in Ireland, the brent goose is one of the most 

 abundant, as well as being the smallest, of the wild geese. Indeed, in 

 Ireland it is the commonest wild goose next to the white-fronted 

 species. On the west coast of Scotland, on the other hand, the 

 barnacle goose is by far the commoner of the two species of sea-geese. 



From its habit of feeding largely in shallow water on grass-wrack 

 and other seaweeds, the brent goose is known locally as the rut ( = root) 

 goose. This vegetable food is, however, supplemented to some extent 

 by small shell-fish and crustaceans. The nests, in Arctic America, are 

 stated to be placed in hollows on the sloping hills between the sea and 

 the snow-line, and are constructed of grass, moss, and saxifrage-stems, 

 with an abundant lining of down. In the latter part of June each 

 contains four or five creamy-white and somewhat glossy eggs, the 

 length of which ranges between just over 2\ and a fraction short 

 of 3 inches. 



The red-breasted goose (Z);v^//A^ ruficollis),\\\{\z\\ breeds in Siberia and 

 winters in the Caspian Sea, is only an occasional straggler to Great 

 Britain, and is apparently unknown in Ireland, one reputed instance 

 of its occurrence in the latter island not being recognised by recent 



