444 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
pense with such unsavoury food, but in other places they have a 
most delicious relish, rather better than either a Wild-duck, Teal, 
or Snipe. This is the case of the Barnacles at Londonderry and 
Wexford, and I hear the same concerning those at Belfast: the 
difference, I understand, arises from the food. At Londonderry, 
in the bay commonly called Lough Foyle, there grows a grass 
that sends out a stalk about a fathom long; the root of this is 
white and tender, and continues such for some space above the 
root, and ’tis almost as sweet as a sugar-cane. The Barnacles 
dive to the bottom, and lay hold on it as near as they can to the 
root, and pull it up with them to the surface of the water, and eat 
the tender part of it; the rest they let drive with the wind to the 
shore, where it lies in great heaps, and when rotten is good 
manure for land; and from this sweet grass, ‘tis supposed, pro- 
ceeds the sweetness of their flesh. They are taken by nets, set 
in proper places on the shores. "Tis observable that the Divers 
and Widgeons, which are very rank and unsavoury elsewhere, 
undergo the same change of their flesh when they feed in this 
place.” 
This habit of the Brent Goose, as noticed by Dr. Boate, 
explains the origin of the old northern name “ Rotgaus” 
(i. e., Root-goose), applied to it both by Willughby and Pennant, 
neither of whom, however, give the explanation. The word 
occurs in the ‘ Durham Household Book’ under date 1534, thus: 
“Feb. 3. Item, one ‘ Rutgoys,’ 3d; one Mawlert [mallard], six 
Dunlings,* 2d.; one Seepye, 1d.” 
In O’Flaherty’s ‘ Chorographical Description of West or 
H-Iar Connaught,’ written in 1684, we have the following brief 
account of the fauna of that part of Ireland :—‘‘ The land pro- 
duces wild beasts as wolves, deere, foxes, badgers, hedgehogs, 
hares, rabbits, squirrells, martens, weasels, and the amphibious 
otter, of which kind the white-faced otter is very rare. It is never 
killed they say but with the loss of man or dog, and its skin is 
mighty precious. It [i.e., the country] admits no rats to live 
anywhere within it except the Isles of Aran, and the district 
* Does not this orthography suggest the origin of the word, 7.e., 
“the little dun thing?” Compare the diminutives, Titling, Duckling, 
Gosling, &e. 
