THE SOLAND GOOSE. 319 



t'atigable nature, and its dexterity in catching fish, 

 for which purpose it is in some countries, and parti- 

 cularly in many parts of China, brought up taine,, 

 and regularly employed. " It is very pleasant/' say* 

 a judicious writer, " to befiold with what sagacity 

 they portion out the lake or the canal where they are 

 on 'duty. When they have found their prey, they 

 seize it by the middle with their beak, and carry it 

 without fail to their master. When the fish is too 

 large, they give each other mutual assistance : one 

 seizes it by the head, and another by the tail, and in 

 this manner they carry it together to the boat. They 

 have always, while they fish, a string fastened round 

 their throats, to hinder them from devouring their 

 prey. There are some other species of the pelican, 

 which, for brevity's sake, I shall omit: those describ- 

 ed being the most remarkable. 



THE SOLAND GOOSE 



is about the size of a tame goose, but its wings are 

 much longer, their expansion being not less than six 

 feet. Its colour is chiefly white, and it has a pouch 

 resembling that of the pelican, and of a size sufficient 

 to contain five or six herrings, which, in the breeding 

 season, it carries at once to its mate, or its young. 



These birds, subsisting entirely on fish, always re- 

 sort to those unfrequented shores or unknown islands, 

 where they can find abundance of food without being 

 disturbed by the intrusion of man. The islands on 

 the coasts of Scotland, Ireland, and Norway, appear 

 to be the great rendezvous of these birds. On the 

 Bass island, in the P'rith of Edinburgh, they swarm in 

 such abundance, that, according to a modern author, 

 " it is scarcely possible to walk without treading on 

 them: the flocks on the wing are so numerous, as to 

 darken the air like a cloud ; and their noise is such, 

 that one cannot without difficulty be heard by the 

 person who is next to him." And we find, by the 

 accounts of navigators, that they are scarcely less nu- 

 merous in many other parts of the world. 



The soland goose is migratory, but does not remove 

 to countries far remote; and its migration appears to 

 p 4 



