ANSERES. ( 91 ) ANATID&. 



THE BRENT GOOSE. 



THE BLACK-FACED BERNICLE GOOSE, BRAND GOOSE, BLACK- 



HEADED BARNACLE, RING - NECKED BARNACLE, CLATTER 



GOOSE, HORRA GOOSE, WARE GOOSE, BLACK GOOSE. 



Bernicla brenta. 



From the frozen North, where Winter' s hand, 

 With sway despotic and untamd, locks up 

 The shrinking world ; o'er the wide ocean borne 

 On vig'rous wing, pour forth the feather' d tribes 

 Diverse and strange. 



REV. JOHN VINCENT, Fowling. 



THE Brent Goose is a winter visitor, and is the smallest of 

 the various species of Wild Geese which are found on our 

 shores. It is occasionally seen off the coast of Berwickshire 

 during the winter months, but it seldom visits the interior 

 of the county, the only instance of its occurrence in the 

 Merse with which I am acquainted being that of an imma- 

 ture specimen in the possession of Mr. Allan of Peelwalls, 

 which was shot on Billie Mains Mill Pond about thirty 

 years ago. Immense flocks frequent Fenham Flats, near 

 Holy Island, in Northumberland, from autumn until spring, 

 where numbers are frequently killed, as they are excellent 

 birds for the table. 



This species feeds chiefly upon marine plants 1 and 

 insects. 



1 Mr. Andrew Brotherston, bird-stuffer, Kelso, records that in the early part of 

 February 1879 he had two Brent Geese sent to him for preservation, and their 

 stomachs were filled with grass-wrack (Zostera marina). He adds that they had 

 probably been feeding on the slakes between Fenham and Holy Island, where this 

 plant occurs in great abundance, and where so many Brents were killed at the time 

 above mentioned that they were selling at one shilling each. Hist. B&r. Nat. Club, 

 vol. viii. p. 537. 



