GOOSE. 



659 



colour and grey. The head and upper part of the 

 neck are black, with the exception of a spot on each 

 side of the neck immediately behind the throat, which 

 is white, as are also the vent-feathers and the upper 

 and under tail-coverts. The lower part of the back 

 and the rump are also black. The tail-feathers, the 

 quills, and also the feet, are dusky. The bill is dark 

 horn colour, narrow and short, not exceeding an inch 

 and a half. The eyes are light hazel, which form a 

 very striking contrast with the black of the head. 

 The most remarkable external character, however, is 

 the white spot on the back of the neck, and next to 

 that the uniformity of the upper plumage. In the 

 females and young birds, the colours are not so well 

 marked, and the neck spots are mottled with dusky. 



This is a more discursive bird than the larger geese, 

 being: better winged in proportion to its weight, which 

 is only about one half, seldom exceeding five pounds, 

 while the three species previously enumerated may 

 be said to average ten. The brent goose breeds 

 chiefly in the very extreme north. It is found both 

 in the eastern and western continent, and in all pro- 

 bability it ranges round the whole shores of the polar 

 sea, the islands in which are its favourite resting 

 places. It migrates southward in the winter, as far 

 at least as the middle of France ; and when the win- 

 ters are peculiarly severe in the northern countries, 

 brent geese often come in immense flocks, and are 

 very destructive to the wheat fields. Buffon mentions 

 that in 1740 and 1765, which were winters of great 

 severity, brent geese attacked the corn fields in 

 France in such multitudes that the whole inhabitants 

 were raised en masse, and had no small labour in 

 driving off and destroying these unwelcome strangers. 

 In mild seasons these birds do not come so nume- 

 rously as the common wild geese, neither are they so 

 destructive ; for, if the marshes are open, they prefer 

 the roots of marsh plants to the braird of' the wheat 

 fields. We may mention here, as closely connected 

 with the habits of this goose, that the chief attraction 

 of geese to the polar marshes, is not the developed or 

 green vegetation, which appears in those countries 

 during their brief summer, it is the hybernating 

 roots. In those countries the plants, marsh plants 

 especially, work more by roots than by seeds ; and 

 though the leaves when they come up are generally 

 coarse, the roots contain a vast accumulation of 

 nutritious matter, far more than those of the larger 

 marsh plants of more temperate countries. This is 

 accumulated as a store for the action of the year, 

 which, under the influence of a never-setting sun, is 

 exceedingly rapid ; and the moment that the snow 

 melts and the ice breaks up, the geese are on the 

 grounds, where, by partaking of this rich and abundant 

 supply, they are soon in high condition, notwithstand- 

 ing their long journey. They breed soon after their 

 arrival, and their broods are out in time to nibble the 

 young leaves of the plants. 



BERNACLE GOOSE (A. leucopsis). This species of 

 goose is of some celebrity in the annals of fabulous 

 natural history, being the one which was anciently 

 described as being bred not in the common way in 

 which birds are, but growing out of the beruacle 

 shell, which is a well-known pedunculated or stalked 

 molluscous animal, having shells at the extremities of 

 the stalks. Those animals are rooted, and they 

 attach themselves to the bottoms of ships and to 

 floating wood, as they are thereby carried from place 

 to place. There is always a great deal of drift wood 



in the North Sea ; the storms, while they collect it in 

 some places scatter it to others, so that the pieces 

 float in all directions, and have very often bernacles on 

 the under sides of them. In violent and long con- 

 tinued storms these bernacled logs of wood are fre- 

 quently cast ashore ; and the same circumstances 

 often exhaust the bernacle geese, who do not corne 

 southward in very great numbers, unless the storm 

 drives them. Their exhausted or dead bodies are 

 often cast ashore along with the bernacled logs ; and 

 thus, at that time, when stories were believed, not in 

 proportion as they were true, but in proportion as 

 they were wonderful, the bernacle shells were set 

 down as producing the geese which came ashore 

 along with them. If this wonderful matter had been 

 confined to the sea-shore, there might have been some 

 plea for it ; but several persons have pretended that 

 there were eye-witnesses to the changing of bernacle 

 shells into geese in the larger ponds in some of 

 the middle counties of England, where neither 

 bernacle shell nor bernacle goose is likely ever 

 to be found. There is a satirical allusion to this in 

 Butler's Hudibras ; but as Butler never was single in 

 his wit, if he could by any means double or treble it, 

 he transferred the strange metamorphosis to the 

 gannet or Solan, quasi Solon goose, as a hit at the 

 foolish pretence at wisdom, which he was lashing. 



" As bernacles turn Solan greese, 

 I' the islands of the Orcudes." 



The bernacle goose is still smaller than the brent 

 goose, being less than two feet in length, and only a 

 little more than four in the stretch of the wings ; but 

 it is not an unhandsome bird. From the tip to the 

 corner of the gape, the bill is scarcely an inch and a 

 half long, black, and crossed with a pale reddish 

 streak on each side ; a narrow black line passes from 

 the bill to the eyes ; the irides are brown ; the head 

 is small, and, as far as the crown, together with the 

 cheeks and throat, white ; the rest of the head and 

 neck, to the breast and shoulders, is black. The 

 upper part of the plumage is prettily marbled or 

 burred with blue grey, black, and white ; the feathers 

 of the back are black, edged with white ; those of 

 the wing-coverts and scapulars blue grey, bordered 

 with black near their margins, and edged with white ; 

 the quills black, edged a little way from the tips with 

 blue grey ; the tail-coverts and under parts white ; 

 the thighs are marked with dusky lines or spots, and 

 are black near the knees ; the tail is black, and five 

 inches and a half long ; the feet and legs are dusky, 

 very thick and short, and have a stumpy appear- 

 ance. This structure of the feet answers well, 

 however, with some of the habits of the bird, as 

 it is much more of a swimmer than most of the 

 geese ; and it does not migrate so far or so much 

 inland. It is not uncommon during winter in 

 the Orkney and Shetland islands, where it is called 

 the clack, or "claik" goose. This word, which is 

 merely a provincial orthoepy of the common word 

 " clack," and alludes to the clacking gabble of those 

 geese, has been represented to Baron Cuvier ; and 

 he has set it down in the Regne Animal as the Scotch 

 name for a goose generally, which it is not. The 

 mistake is a trifling one ; but it deserves correction, 

 as Cuvier's name must carry it far and wide, and pre- 

 serve it long. It has not been ascertained that the 

 bernacle goose breeds either in the islands or in any 

 part of the north of Scotland, though it has been 

 T T2 



