1 8 2 The Goose-like Birds 



Barnacle Goose. In western Europe this group is represented by the Bar- 

 nacle Goose (B. leucopsis), which is so called on account of the curious belief 

 which gained credence from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries, that they 

 were developed from barnacles. Thus Giraldus Cambrensis, writing in 1187, 

 says: "There are here many birds which are called Bernacae, which nature 

 produces in a manner contrary to nature, and very wonderful. They are like 

 marsh-geese, but smaller. They are produced from fir timber tossed about at 

 sea, and are at first like eggs on it. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks, 

 as if from a sea-weed attached to the wood, and are enclosed in shells that they 

 may grow the more freely. Having thus, in course of time, been clothed with a 

 strong covering of feathers, they either fall into the water, or seek their liberty 

 in the air by flight. The embryo geese derive their growth and nutriment from 

 the moisture of the wood or of the sea, in a secret and most marvelous manner. 

 I have seen with my own eyes more than a thousand minute bodies of these birds 

 hanging from one piece of timber on the shore, enclosed in shells, and already 

 formed." Pages of testimony of a similar character might be quoted from Olaus 

 Magnus, Sir John Maundeville, and many others. 



The Barnacle Goose is about twenty-five inches in length and has the mantle 

 bluish gray barred with black and gray, the wings and tail blackish, the lower 

 parts white, and the head mostly white, with the lores, crown, neck, and chest 

 black. It is found in Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, and Nova Zembla, where 

 it is supposed to breed, but its nest and eggs are unknown. It winters in northern 

 Europe, coming occasionally to the east coast of North America. 



The Brant or Brant Goose (B. bernida) is found on the seacoast of eastern 

 North America and western Europe, breeding only within the Arctic Circle. 

 It is a little smaller than the last and has the upper parts brownish gray, the 

 lower parts slate-gray, and the head entirely black, with a white patch on the sides 

 of the neck. The American form, which is whiter below than the European, is 

 a distinct subspecies (B. glaucogaster), though it also occurs in western Europe. 

 The nest, placed on the ground, is composed of grasses, moss, etc., and is lined 

 with down, and the eggs, smooth and creamy white in color, are usually four. 

 Its habits are similar to those of its relatives, it being, however, rather less active 

 than the Canada Goose, and not flying with the same precision or rapidity. 

 The Black Brant (B. nigricans) is the western representative of the last species 

 and may be known by the nearly complete white collar, and much darker under 

 parts. The Brant Geese are present in the Southern Hemisphere, but as they 

 differ more or less from those of the north they have been separated as a sub- 

 family (ChloephagincE), but the characters are not very important and some 

 writers place them all under the genus last considered. Of the six species found 

 in southern South America, Mr. W. H. Hudson considers the Ashy-headed Goose 

 (Chloephaga poliocephala) as the handsomest. It has the head, neck, and 

 scapulars grayish lead-color, the breast and upper back chestnut, banded with 

 black, the abdomen, under wing-coverts, bend of the wing, and secondaries white, 

 the primaries, lower back, tail, and wing-coverts black, the latter edged with 

 shining green and tipped with white, and the under tail-coverts chestnut-rufous. 



