BRENT GOOSE. 139 
230. WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE—(Azser albifrons). 
Laughing Goose.—A regular winter visitor, and not in any very 
scanty numbers. One of my very worst discomfitures in my early 
sporting-days took place in connection with a flock of these birds. 
There were seven or eight of them which flew deliberately right 
on towards my father and myself till they were within twenty- 
five yards of us, and then they doubled up into a confused 
clump, and I was already counting the slam when my gun missed 
fire. My father’s did not, and gave us the opportunity of identi- 
fying the species. It breeds in Scotland and other countries far 
to the north. 
231. BERNICLE GOOSE—(Axser leucopsis). 
Another winter visitor; often appearing in great flocks, but 
always retiring to the north again to breed. It is supposed to 
frequent the shores of the White Sea especially for such purpose. 
232. BRENT GOOSE—(dzser brenta). 
_ Black Goose, Ware Goose.—By far the most numerous of all 
the geese which visit our shores in winter, as it is also the least. 
I have seen it in inconceivable numbers on the Essex coast in 
hard winters, and the numbers reported to have been killed at 
one discharge of a heavy punt-gun, seem simply incredible. In 
the very hard and long-continued winter of 1837-38, I saw the ice 
which, in broken fragments of four or five feet square by three 
or four inches thick, covered the whole estuary of the Blackwater 
at Tollesbury (a space of very considerable width), black with 
them during highwater. The expression made use of by one of 
the sea-faring men of the neighbourhood was, “There are acres of 
’em.” Still of all their vast numbers none remain to breed, and 
no great proportion of them are known to breed in Europe. 
