36 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



at Easton, near Norwicli, in 1850 ("Zoologist," 1850, 

 p. 2969), and exhibits in a marked degree, both in form 

 and plumage, the chief characteristics of both species. 

 Several pure bernacles were also bred on the same water 

 during Mr. Gurney's residence at Easton. Except as 

 regards the origin of the terms bernacle and "tree 

 goose," as applied to this species, it is needless here 

 to refer to the laughable fable of ancient naturalists, 

 who associated the origin of this species with bernacle 

 shells and the rotten wood of trees or wrecks to which 

 those marine molluscs attach themselves. It is satis- 

 factory, however, to know, as pointed out by Mr. Johns, 

 in his "British Birds in their Haunts," that such 

 mythical fancies were ridiculed and exposed nearly two 

 hundred years ago by Ray and Willughby. 



ANSER TORQUATUS, Frisch. 

 BRENT GOOSE. 



This small species is both a regular and abundant 

 winter visitant to our coast, in autumn its numbers 

 increasing with the severity of the weather, and in 

 very hard winters is met with in immense flocks. About 

 Yarmouth, as described by the Messrs. Paget, it is 

 not uncommon, but its chief resorts are the flat sandy 

 shores of the northern and western parts of the 

 county, and so essentially is this a marine species 

 that it is but rarely met with on the broads or other 

 inland waters.* Mr. Dowell, writing of its regular 



* Folkard, in his " Wild Fowler" (p. 179), states that the brent 

 goose " never feeds on fresh water herbage, nor flies far inland, nor 

 alights in fresh water." This is not strictly correct, although to 

 perform any of the above acts is certainly the exception and not 

 the rule. A specimen in the Norwich Museum was killed on 

 Barton broad, near Yarmouth. 



