88 0« the Occurrence of some of the Rarer Species of Birds 



garb of black and grey, its white feathering under the tail forming a 

 pleasing contrast to the rest of the plumage. They are not generally 

 met with inland ; but last April, as I was walking through one of 

 our farmyards in the parish, the farmer accosted me, knowing that 

 I was a lover of birds, and said that his cousin had just gone on a 

 wild-goose chase after some strange bird he had seen feeding on his 

 wheat, and naively remarked that I had better join him, as he^d 

 dare say it would not be the first that I had indulged in. Much as 

 I desired to follow his advice, however, I was unable to do so, and 

 feeling sure that I should hear more of the bird if it were procured 

 1 went my way ; and in the evening my friend appeared with a nice 

 Brent Goose he had shot, and which is now in my collection. It is 

 the first bird of the species I have heard of as occurring in our more 

 immediate neighbourhood; but being just during the migratory 

 season it was doubtless passing over in company with some others, 

 and had already been somewhat crippled on its way. 



Bernicla Canadensis. " The Canadian or Cravat Goose.^' So 

 many of these birds are kept in a state of semi-domestication that 

 it becomes almost an impossibility to tell whether the specimens 

 that are now and then procured in the neighbourhood are really 

 wild birds or not. Some few years ago there were three killed out 

 of a flock of seven at Coombe Bissett, which had hung about the 

 water-meadows for some time. Since that they have been constantly 

 Been amongst us, as some semi-domesticated birds, belonging to the 

 Earl of Pembroke, breed in some of the rush-beds near Bemerton, 

 just above Salisbury, and continually pay us a passing visit, though 

 they would seem generally wide-awake enough to keep out of harm's 

 way. On the Easter morning of this year I was suddenly woke up 

 in the early morning by the trumpet-call of these birds ; and starting 

 up I saw four of them flying close by our bedroom window, within 

 easy shot. I remember seeing a large flock of some seventy or 

 eighty of these birds feeding in the water-meadows near Theale, as 

 I was passing in the train, which had evidently taken French leave 

 from some of their usual haunts ; very likely from the ornamental 

 water in Dogmersfield Park, where there used to be a good many 

 kept. Hart gets occasional specimens at Christchurch, one, for 



