270 NATATORES. ANSER. BERNICLE GOOSE. 
and highly esteemed for the table. Upon the approach of 
spring it leaves our shores for more northern countries, and 
by the middle of March the whole have retired. Its summer 
retreats extend to very high latitudes, as it is known to 
breed in Iceland, Spitzbergen, Greenland, &c. as well as in 
Lapland, the northern parts of Russia, and northern Asia. 
It also inhabits Hudson’s Bay, and other polar districts of 
the American Continent. During its equatorial or winter 
migration, besides the shores of our own island, it is abun- 
dant in Holland, France, and parts of Germany. I cannot 
but notice here, for the lovers of the ridiculous, the wonder- 
ful accounts given by Grrarp, the celebrated botanist, and 
some others, of the origin of this and the next species from 
a kind of shell (the Lepas Anatifera of Linnxus); yet are 
they curious, as exhibiting the great ignorance and conse- 
quent credulity of the age in which they were written. I 
refer my readers therefore to Grrarp’s Herbal, page 1588, 
edit. 1636; or to the extracts from it, and other authors, 
contained in the twelfth volume of SHaw’s Zoology, under 
the head of the Common Bernicle. In the present species, 
and in the Brent Goose, we have a slight modification in the 
form of the bill, which is shorter in proportion to the size of 
the birds than in the geese already described ; and the lamel- 
lee of the upper mandible are in a great measure concealed 
by the reflected edges of the bill. These differences, how- 
ever, are so trifling, as scarcely to warrant a generic separa- 
tion, but they lead the way to other forms where such sepa- 
ration appears necessary. ‘The Bernicle is a bird of hand- 
some shape, and, from the length of its neck and tarsi, stands 
high upon the ground. When caught alive, it soon becomes 
very tame, and thrives well upon grain, &c.; but no attempts 
have been hitherto made to domesticate the breed. 
Pate 44, represents this bird in about three-fourths of the 
natural size. 
