158 THE GEESE 



passes in flocks, both by day and by night, at intervals till the end of the month : 

 they leave by the first week of May (cf. Ussher and Warren, B. of Ireland, 1900, 

 p. 182). They reach the Solway, in variable but apparently decreasing numbers, 

 with great regularity between September 28 and 30, always in the afternoon or 

 evening: between April 18 and 20 they leave at nightfall in a northerly or north- 

 westerly direction (cf. Gladstone, B. of Dumfries., 1910, p. 251). Forty birds, in 

 two flocks, were recorded from the Solway as late as 4th July 1908, and a single 

 bird, probably ailing, remained there throughout the summer of 1886 (cf. Glad- 

 stone, loc. cit.). It will be gathered from the above that the barnacle-goose 

 travels both by night and by day. It is markedly gregarious : a vast flock, esti- 

 mated as numbering as many as ten thousand, was seen on the Solway flats in 

 early October 1881 -they had apparently just arrived, as they were so tired that 

 they could be approached to within thirty yards (cf. Service, Annals Scot. Nat. 

 Hist., 1903, p. 199). [A. L. T.] 



4. Nest and Eggs. Does not breed in the British Isles. [F. c. n. J.] 



5. Food. Grass obtained from pastures near the sea, aquatic weeds, Crus- 

 tacea, and aquatic insects. Le Roi records leaves of Oxyria digyna and stalks of 

 grasses from a goose shot in the breeding season in Spitsbergen. Food of young 

 unknown, [w. p. p.] 



BRENT-GOOSE [Brdnta bernicla bernicla (Linnaeus); Bernicla brenta 

 (Pallas). Clatter-goose, ware-goose, road-goose, horra-goose (Orkneys). 

 French, bernache cravant ; German, Ringel-Gans ; Italian, oca columbaccio]. 



1. Description. The brent-goose is easily distinguished by the black 

 colour of the head and neck, the latter with a white patch on each side, and the 

 great length of the white upper and under tail-coverts, which completely conceal 

 the tail. The sexes are alike. (PL 154.) Length 22 in. [558-0 mm.]. The 

 scapulars and interscapulars are sooty black. Fore-breast black, lower breast and 

 fore-part of the abdomen greyish brown, hind abdomen and under tail-coverts 

 white, legs black. In the juvenile plumage the white patches are wanting ; the 

 fore-breast is grey like the belly and flanks, and the latter lack the light bars of the 

 adult. The wing-coverts have whitish tips, and the inner secondaries whitish 

 margins. The young in down are dark grey above, greyish white below cheek, 

 and throat whitish, [w. p. p.] 



2. Distribution. The commonest of the geese which visit us in winter. Its 



