CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. 129 
ground, and only raises a note of alarm when well away from the 
nest. The young are hatched from the middle of June until the 
middle of July. (Nelson.) 
fo. brant. 
Branta bernicla (LINN.) SCOPOLI. 1769. 
Said not to breed in Greenland lower than lat. 70°, but does so 
in great numbers on the Polar sea. (Arct. Man.) One of the first 
birds of passage to arrive on Ellsemere island. Their nests were 
found on islets in the sea or rivers and on the great plains. (FE. Buy.) 
This species breeds in numbers on the coasts and islands of Hudson 
bay and the Arctic sea, and is rarely seen in theinterior. (Richard- 
SON.) 
This species is a very abundant migrant on the whole Atlantic 
coast (north of Hudson strait) filling at times the heads of all the 
bays and feeding on seaweed, chiefly of the genus Ulva. It is 
quite frequent in the St. Lawrence and is known to ascend the Ottawa 
to thirty miles below the city. It is casual in Lake Ontario and said 
to be a rare migrant in western Ontario. Occasionally seen in 
Manitoba but not to the west of that province. 
On the 13th December, 1903 I noticed a bunch of six brant near 
Comox, Vancouver isiand, that kept separate from the large numbers 
of black brant in the harbour; after a hard bit of work I managed 
to kill one of them, which proved to be an adult female of the Atlantic 
species. The others were undoubtedly an old male and three young 
of the same species as they all looked very light coloured. The 
specimen secured is in every way typical bernicla, with interrupted 
collar, and sharply defined black breast, against the pale grayish 
lower surface. It was very fat. Ihave since found that the eastern 
brant is a fairly common migrant on the Pacific coast. Since shoot- 
ing the first specimen, I have killed seven others, and have seen a 
number of small bands that, as a rule, keep separate from the black 
brant. I should say about eight per cent of the brant in Comox 
bay are the eastern species. Only once have I killed both species 
out of the same flock. There seems to be no tendency to inter- 
gradation, unless the uniting of the neck patches in one bernicla 
might be so considered. This was an adult male, in-all other respects 
typical bernicla, and the collar was barely united by the slightest 
white tipping. (Brooks.) 
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