The Goose.] OF ORKNEY. 135 



sold to the merchant fetch about eightpence or tenpence, sel- 

 dom above the last price. 



When cured many of them are sent to the Leith market, 

 where they sell tolerably well ; but the feathers of geese make 

 a very considerable article in our Orkney exports : these are 

 sold at about tenpence or a shilling per pound, and the de- 

 mand is still great for them. We have not here got into the 

 method of plucking our geese till they are killed, which is 

 in November, when there is a general slaughter of the birds 

 of the same year, and none kept but a few for Christmas, and 

 the brood geese for next season. 



Species 3. The Bernade. 



Bernacle or Clakis, Wil. Orn. Raii Syn. Av. 137. Sib. Scot. 21. Brit. 

 ZooL4ol. Anas Erythropus, (mas), Lin. Sys. 197. 



THE Bernacle sometimes appears here in flocks in spring, 

 I suppose in their way to the north country ; for any thing I 

 can learn, do not build here, and but touch here by chance. I 

 met with a skin of one of those which was killed out of a flock 

 which had hovered here a while in their passage. The bill was 

 short and black, with oblong nostrils ; the head small ; the 

 neck long and slender ; the face and cheeks white ; the rest 

 of the head, the throat, and breast, as also the back, a good 

 black ; the root of the tail white ; the tail black ; the wings 



