BERNACLE GOOSE. 35 



describes the Bernacle as only an occasional visitant at 

 Holkham and rare at Blakeney ; and a specimen sent him 

 from Salthouse* as late as the beginning of May, 1846, 

 was one of but three examples he had known killed on 

 that part of the Norfolk coast. In my own notes the 

 first record dates back to the mild winter of 1851-52, 

 when, as before stated, wild geese of various kinds were 

 unaccountably numerous, and amongst these, on the 

 20th of December, two couple of Bernacles, in full 

 adult plumage, were sent to Norwich from Ilickling; 

 and on the 28th a single bird from Burlingham. In the 

 winter of 1854-55 I saw but one bernacle goose, killed 

 towards the close of that most inclement season at Kim- 

 berley, on the 18th of February; and these, with an 

 immature bird shot at Blakeney, in November, 1860, 

 and two in the Norwich market in the following January, 

 another exceptionally severe winter, are all that have 

 come under my own notice. For the last ten yearsf I 

 have neither seen nor heard of a Norfolk killed specimen, 

 nor could I ascertain that any were remarked either at 

 Lynn or on any other part of the coast throughout the 

 long and severe winter of 1870-71. This is the more 

 remarkable, since in Leadenhall Market, Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney has found the bernacle, of late years, rank next 

 in point of numbers, to the common brent; but the 

 majority of those exhibited for sale in London are pro- 

 bably Dutch birds. A hybrid in Mr. Gurney 's collection, 

 between a bernacle goose and a Canada gander, was bred 



* The occurrence of a pair of bernacles at Salthouse, on the 

 26th of January, 1848, is recorded by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher 

 in the " Zoologist," p. 2027, 



f Mr. Cordeaux, in his "Ornithological notes from North 

 Lincolnshire " (" Zoologist," s. s., p. 1124), after stating that small 

 flocks of bernacles (there known as " Spanish geese") had appeared 

 in that neighbourhood in December, 1867, remarks, " It is many 

 years since I noted their last appearance in this district." 



F 2 



