S6 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



The White-bellied race is very local, aud is perhaps more frequently met 

 with as a winter visitor on the east coast of England, than anywhere else in the 

 British Islands. A small flock has, to my knowledge, for twenty years, come to 

 the same locality on the Lincolnshire coast. Mr. Haigh says he has never seen 

 more than half-a-dozen together, more generally a single bird or a pair. 



In the winter of 1880-81, the White-bellied race were very plentiful in the 

 Humber estuary. It was, however, in the Arctic winter of 1890-91, when enormous 

 numbers of wild fowl visited the district, that I met with the greatest number of 

 White-bellied birds. On January 24th and 25th, the great bay inside the Spurn 

 was crowded with all sorts of wild-fowl, a sight never to be forgotten, and one 

 which filled the oldest inhabitants with astonishment, for such a multitude of 

 Geese, Swans, and Ducks, had not been seen congregated, at one time, on the 

 coast for many years. On this occasion I saw, through a telescope, a flock of 

 White-bellied Geese, which swam somewhat apart, and were readily distinguished 

 as they rolled up a white flank on the wave. In this winter several Brent were 

 obtained, in which the dark under parts were uniform in colour, the belly as black 

 as the breast. The probability is that the three races of Geese intergrade a view 

 already expressed by American ornithologists ; and there is a regular gradation in 

 the colour of the under parts, from Greenland, eastward, to Bering's Straits. 



The chief food of the Brent Goose is the long grass-like blades and roots of 

 the Zostera, the longer pieces are neatly rolled up, like ribbons, in their stomachs ; 

 they also devour the fronds of some species of algae, crustaceans, mollusca, worms, 

 and marine insects. Mr. Gatke says, at Heligoland, where the sea is calm, 

 small companies will approach the cliffs and pick off the small mollusca and 

 crustaceans. 



The common cry or call-note of the Brent is a loud metallic chronk, clironk. 

 The confused gabbling and mixed cries of a flock can be heard at an immense 

 distance at sea. They have another, and double note, which has been likened to 

 the word torock, constantly repeated on the wing : and the alarm cry is a single 

 word wauk. 



I have at times been greatly entertained in watching a flock of Brent feeding 

 in shallow water, close in shore, the greater portion of the birds upside down, 

 their rumps and tails shewing the white coverts, only visible as they greedily tear 

 at the blades and roots of the grass-wrack, whilst others are seizing the floating 

 fragments of the plant, broken off and dislodged by their mates ; and on the out- 

 side there are always some with heads held high ever on the watch, and ready to 

 give alarm. All the time they keep up a continuous noisy gabbling and grunting, 

 the rear birds constantly swimming forward to get in advance of their fellows, a 



