AMERICAN BRANT 



105 



are preferable, but Brant will come to good wooden decoys if properly 

 placed; a supply of both is 

 desirable. The Brant feed at 

 low tide away off on the eel- 

 grass beds; but as the rising 

 tide covers the grass too deep- 

 ly, they are driven to seek 

 other feeding grounds or 

 sanding places, and in flying 

 about will often come to the 

 decoys. The best shooting 

 then is for a short time only, 

 at about half-flood tide and 

 again at about half ebb, while 

 the birds are moving. The 

 morning tides are considered 

 the best, so it is often quite 

 dark w r hen we tramp down 

 through the marsh to our 

 box, heavily laden with de- 

 coys, guns, and ammunition 

 and encumbered with rubber 

 boots and oilskins, for it is 

 cold and wet work." 



On their Arctic breeding 

 grounds the food of these 

 birds consist of grass, algae, moss, and stalks and leaves of Arctic plants. 

 In the winter on our Atlantic coast their chief food is eelgrass (Zostem 

 marina}, which grows so extensively in shallow bays and estuaries. They 

 do not graze on dry land like so many of the other geese, but the ebbing 

 tide finds them in large flocks over the beds of eelgrass, which they attack 

 as soon as the water becomes sufficiently shallow'; nor do they dive for 

 their food, but feed as do the Surface-feeding Ducks by "tipping" in the 

 shallow waters, their rumps and white tail-coverts being the only visible 

 parts. They prefer the roots and lower white portions of the eelgrass 

 but eat the green fronds as well; they pull up much more of the plant 

 than they require for the immediate meal, and eat the floating remainder 

 later, when the tide has risen and the roots are no longer available. They 

 have a peculiar habit of so rolling up their food that it appears as neat, 

 compact little balls in their stomachs and they pack away enormous 

 quantities of grass in this manner. The unprecedented and nearly com- 

 plete destruction of eelgrass on the coasts of the North Atlantic that 

 began about 1931 and has continued with small abatement to the present 

 has been disastrous for the Brant, for this plant was their chief item 

 of diet south of the Labrador Peninsula. 



In February the Brant which have spent the winter farthest south 



