452 THE BERNICLE GOOSE. 



merses or flats partially inundated by the higher tides, a cir- 

 cumstance that may furnish a hint that their breeding may 

 perhaps be promoted by their being furnished with a little 

 sea-weed during winter and early spring. They are also suffi- 

 ciently removed from the typical Geese to make it possible 

 that a few cockles, limpets, shrimps, or small mussels would 

 not be unwelcome. A single pair would be more likely to 

 breed than if they were congregated in larger numbers : and 

 the price demanded by the London dealers is not extravagant 

 for healthy living specimens. 



The young of the Bernicle Goose, like those of the Canada 

 and White-fronted Geese, when left entirely to the guidance 

 of their parents in this country, are apt to be attacked by a 

 sort of erysipelatous inflammation of the head, similar to that 

 from which the Domestic Fowl suffers so much, and which 

 proves equally fatal. The eyelids swell till the bird is blinded; 

 its sufferings must be extreme, even if it recover. The parts 

 affected discharge copiously a watery fluid. Frequent washing 

 with warm water and vinegar is the best remedy, and cram- 

 ming the bird to keep it alive, must be resorted to. Pills of 

 rue-leaves, or a strong decoction of rue, as a tonic, have been 

 administered with apparent benefit. The disease seems epi- 

 demic rather than contagious, though I would not quite deny 

 that it is so ; but of all remedies, warmth and dryness, par- 

 ticularly at night, are the most indispensable. Goslings 

 hatched about midsummer in the Arctic regions know not 

 what it is to feel the absence of the sun. A Scandinavian 

 summer's night, even in those latitudes where the sun does 

 sink for an hour beneath the horizon, differs from the day in 

 little else than stillness. There are no frosts succeeding a 

 broiling day, no chilling dews which require hours of sunshine 

 to remove, but all is, for the time, perpetually bright and 

 warm and genial^ The difference between such a climate and 

 an English May must be seriously felt by our tender little 



