64 THE BEAN GOOSE. 



of their passage overhead during the night from this 

 cause, when otherwise they would not have been 

 discovered. 



In summer some of the Hebrides are, we believe, 

 regularly visited by them for the purpose of breed- 

 ing ; and the northern counties of Scotland, as the 



limit of their range, likewise receive a considerable 



. 



number of pairs for a similar purpose. * In 1834, 

 we had the satisfaction of seeing them during in- 

 cubation, upon several of the larger lochs in Suther- 

 landshire, on some of which they assembled in 

 considerable numbers. The first party was met 

 with about twelve miles up Loch Shin, and when 

 walking amidst some long heath, a short distance 

 from the water's edge, on a piece of very broken 

 ground, an old goose was raised from her brood of 

 newly hatched young ; after allowing herself to be 

 nearly trampled on, the whole scrambled, as it were, 

 to the water, and, when fairly afloat, the young 

 were left to themselves, the parent instinctively 

 knowing that when on that element they were 

 comparatively safe, w^hich their activity in paddling 

 from the shore, and repeatedly diving, abundantly 

 warranted. On Loch Naver, broods were again seen, 

 and specimens of the young were procured about 

 a fortnight or three weeks old, though their powers 

 in the w r ater rendered their capture, even with a 

 boat, a work of exertion and difficulty. On Loch 

 Laighal they were more abundant still, though 



* " A few pairs, it is said, breed annually in Sunbiggin 

 Tarn, near Orton, Westmoreland." Yarreli, iii. p. 61. 





