BERNICLE GOOSE. 349 



that of the Canada goose, being firm and well sustained, and that 

 when travelling the flock passes at a considerable height, arranged 

 in the same angular order, and apparently guided by one of the 

 older ganders. Later writers, in the belief that a greater size of 

 bill entitles the American bird to specific distinction, have changed 

 the name to A. Ga?nbelli. Professor Baird even hints the pos- 

 sibility of there being two species of White-fronted Goose on that 

 continent. Age, sex, difference of feeding, to say nothing of the 

 too prevalent desire to establish new species, should not be lost 

 sight of in the consideration of this subject. As regards the bills 

 of all our British wild geese, there could not, I fear, be a more 

 inconstant feature on which to found a specific character. 



Professor Newton mentions having seen several freshly killed 

 examples of this goose in May, 1858, at Reykjavik, in Iceland, 

 where all the Icelanders who saw the birds recognised them by a 

 local name. 



THE BERNICLE GOOSE. 



ANSER LEUCOPSIS. 

 Cathan. 



THE Bernicle Goose is a very common bird in the West of 

 Scotland, and especially abundant in the Outer Hebrides, where it 

 arrives early in October. Being a strictly migratory species, it 

 takes its departure about the end of April or beginning of May, 

 by which time the grey-lag goose has commenced laying.* Previous 

 to leaving, the Bernicle Geese assemble in immense flocks on the 

 open sands, at low tide, in the Sounds of Benbecula and South 

 Uist; and as soon as one detachment is on the wing it is seen to be 

 guided by a leader, who points the way with a strong flight 

 northwards, maintaining a noisy bearing until he gets the flock 

 into the right course. After an hour's interval, he is seen 

 returning with noisy gabble alone southwards to the main body 

 and taking off another detachment as before, until the whole are 



* Mr Harvie Brown informs me, that in the first week of May, 1870, he saw 

 and fired at large flocks of Bernicles in North Uist, and that on the 12th of the 

 month he picked up a dead male, quite fresh and fat, on an island near 

 Lochmaddy. It had been wounded two days previously by Mr J. M'Donald, 

 who saw large flocks passing northwards at a great height. 



