CHAPTER XIII. 



BERNACLE SHOOTING ON WHYRILL MARSH. 



THE bernacle goose (Anas eruthropus, Lin.) not 

 the Brent goose, which many people, who know no 

 better, call the bernacle, or Wexford bernacle fre- 

 quents a certain marsh at the mouth of the river 

 Dee in Cheshire, called Whyrill Marsh, which is of 

 considerable size, being something like ten miles 

 long and three or four miles broad. The river Dee 

 runs through a large plain of sand, which at low 

 water is dry for a long distance on each side. On 

 the Cheshire side of the river there is a large 

 plain, if I may so term it, which is covered with a 

 short kind of grass, of which the said geese are very 

 fond. Through this grassy plain there are a great 

 many ditches, or what are there termed gutters, which, 

 after meandering about a good deal, eventually find 

 their way into the bed of the river. Unless the tides 



