192 FIELD-NOTES FOR THE YEAR. CH. XIII. 



themselves than any others. When they do so they 

 invariably grow very large, and are most destructive 

 to game of all kinds. A large cat, of this colour, 

 found out some tame rabbits belonging to my boys, 

 and killed several of them. At last we saw him 

 come out of a hole where some white rabbits were 

 breeding ; and he was shot. The brute had evi- 

 dently been living on them for some time. 



At this season the bean goose and the pink-footed 

 goose feed very much on a coarse red -coloured 

 grass which grows in the peat-mosses. They pull 

 it up and eat the root, which is somewhat bulbous 

 shaped. While feeding on it they become very 

 heavy and fat, and have no strong or disagreeable 

 flavour. 



Though these two kinds of geese both feed and 

 fly together, still while on wing and while on the 

 ground they keep somewhat apart. The bean geese 

 are far the most numerous; but there is generally 

 a small company of the pink-footed kind with them, 

 and no one but a close observer would perceive that 

 they do not associate as closely as if they all be- 

 longed to one family. 



A wounded brent goose, which I brought home, 

 very soon became tame, and fed fearlessly close to 

 us; indeed, I have frequently observed the same in- 

 clination to tameness in this beautiful kind of goose. 



