172 ANATIDJE. 



the colonists and Laps. I have seen and shot them in the 

 neighbourhood of Gottenburg in the autumn, but they 

 are not known to pitch often except on the coast. This 

 Goose is more of a sea bird than the rest of the tribe, 

 keeping much in narrow tide ways, and feeding on the 

 drift weed. They are very* abundant among the Danish 

 islands in November and December." 



The Brent Goose is found during summer at the Faroe 

 Islands, at Iceland, and Greenland. Sir John Richardson 

 says, this neat small Goose is very numerous on the coast 

 of Hudson's Bay, in its passage to and from the north. 

 Sir James Ross states that it did not remain near Felix 

 Harbour, Boothia, to breed, but went still further north ; 

 and that it is found during the summer months in the high- 

 est northern latitudes that have been visited. It was 

 found breeding on Parry's Islands, in latitude 74, 75. 



Eggs brought home by some of our northern voyagers 

 were of a greyish white colour, and measured two inches 

 and three-quarters in length, by one inch and three-quarters 

 in breadth. The bird is well known to the ornithologists 

 of the United States : and Mr. Audubon says they have 

 produced their young in captivity, but the birds kept in 

 St. James's Park, and at the Zoological Gardens, do not 

 breed. 



Captain Scoresby, in his account of the Arctic Regions, 

 reports that the Brent Goose occurs in considerable num- 

 bers near the coast of Greenland ; but is not seen in any 

 quantity at Spitzbergen. In K. E. Von Baer's descrip- 

 tion of Animal life in Nova Zembla, a translation of which 

 appeared in the fourth volume of the Annals of Natural 

 History, it is observed, " Among the web-footed birds 

 which pass the season here, the Bean Geese are so com- 

 mon, at least in the southern island, that the collecting 

 their fallen wing-feathers is an object of profit ; according 



