16 



tliu exception of the Brent, more partial to the salt water — its favourite 

 food being the grass-like zostera marina, on the roots of -vvhich it gi'eedily 

 feeds — have from time immemorial assembled in countless hordes on the 

 upper parts of the estuary and the adjoining lands of the Carse of 

 Gowrie, moving, according to the tide, to and fro in marshalled and 

 V shaped flights, collecting, after much wheeling and close inspection, on 

 some wheat or clover field in flocks of many hundreds. A few still 

 occupy the same haunts, but in very greatly reduced numbers, and these 

 arc now confined almost entirely to the Grey and Pink-footed kinds — the 

 latter being the more common of the two, the Bean and White-fronted 

 being now scarcely or ever seen. Not only have punt guns, before- 

 mentioned, the setting of steel traps on the mud banks, and the per- 

 petual firing that now goes on, had to do with this, but also the great 

 change under which the Carse has gone within the last thirty-five years, 

 by the construction of tlie railway right through the very best and heart 

 of their feeding grounds, and the consequent increase of buildings 

 which have sprung up on every side, together with steam miUs, then 

 unknown to the Carse, have greatly effected it. It is a curious fact, and 

 worth mentioning, that it is only since the year 1833 that the difference 

 between the Pink-footed and the Bean Goose was known to naturalists, 

 and that it should be left to a French naturalist, M. BaiUon, at 

 Abbeville, to find it out, who at that date, for the first time, had them 

 separated ; and yet, long before tliis, both species were Avell known, and 

 considered perfectly distinct, by every wild goose shooter in tlie Carse 

 — the Pink-footed under the name of the " Little Black-nebbed," and 

 the Bean, under that of the " Big Black-nebbed," both having the nail 

 of the beak black, whereas in the Grey Goose and the White- 

 fronted it is white ; besides which, the pink feet of the one and 

 the yellow legs of the other were at all times sufficient to dis- 

 tinguish them. As time presses, I will now pass over the 

 remainder of this section, and come to the summer migrants, 

 in which, as above stated, we have only one wader, the little Summer 

 Snipe, with his cheery piping note as the month of May arrives, the 

 five remaining being aU web-footed species. The first of these, the 

 Gannet, brings me to a subject into which it will be necessary for me 

 to enter somewhat fully, as chiefly to this bird is ascribed the great 

 mischief and damage said to be done to our Fisheries, but which, after 

 all, seems to me to be very much of a " mare's nest" — as, though the 

 number of Gannets in Scotland is certainly very large, and their con- 

 sumption of herring enormous, still the supply of fish food, as I will 

 show, is so great as believed to be more than sufficient both for man 

 and bird. In the Kcport of the Commissioners on the Scotland 



