BERNACLE GOOSE. 289 



in a sheltered locality under stones, or isolated rocky masses, 

 the full complement of eggs being five. 



The food of this Goose is grass, and the bents which 

 grow on the sandhills near the coast. Mr. C. M. Adamson 

 states that his captive birds, which refused worms at other 

 times, would eat them in March, and in winter they were 

 partial to the ' London Pride ' in the garden, cropping it close 

 to the ground. 



To this species, and also to the Brent, the old fable referred, 

 in which the birds were said to be hatched from bernacles 

 (LepacUda), attached to logs of wood floating in the sea, as 

 described by Gerard in his ' Herbal.' Sir R. Moray, in a 

 paj^er deemed worthy of publication by the Royal Society in 

 1678, describes the perfectly-formed miniature Geese which 

 he himself had found in the shells. 



This prettily-marked Goose has the beak, and a stripe 

 from the beak to the eye, black ; the length of the beak one 

 inch and three-eighths ; the irides dark brown ; the fore- 

 head, cheeks, and chin, white ; top of the head, nape, all 

 the neck and interscapulars, black ; scapulars, point of the 

 wing, both sets of wing-coverts, and tertials, lavender-grey, 

 tipped with a crescent of bluish-black, and an extreme edge 

 of white ; primaries almost black ; rump bluish-black ; upper 

 tail-coverts white; tail-feathers almost black; breast and belly 

 greyish-white ; vent and under tail-coverts pure white ; flanks 

 and thighs tinged with grey in bars ; legs, toes, membranes, 

 and claws black. 



The whole length of an adult male twenty-five inches. 

 From the blunt spur at the carpal joint to the end of the 

 first quill-feather, which is the longest in the wing, sixteen 

 inches. 



Young birds have the white of the cheeks varied with black 

 feathers ; the ends of the feathers on the back and wing- 

 coverts tinged with rufous ; the flanks barred with darker 

 grey, and the legs less decidedly black. 



VOL. IV. r p 



