235' WHITE FRONTED GOOSE. Class II. 



These birds visit the fens and other parts of 

 Englafid during winter, in small flocks;* they 

 keep always in marshy places, and never fre- 

 quent the corn lands. They disappear in the 

 earliest spring, and none are seen after the mid- 

 dle of Alarch. During summer, they inhabit 

 Hudson s bay, the north of Europe, the extreme 

 north of Asia, and in their migrations spread 

 all over Sibiria. 



LitmcEus makes this goose the female of the 



•x 51 Bernacle; but we think his opinion not well 



founded. Doctor Lister adds two other species 



to the list of English geese; one he calls the 



great Black Goose or IVhilk ; the other the small 



Spanish Goose, which he says is of the same 



, ' color with the common goose, but no larger 



than the Brent goose ; each species has hitherto 



eluded our most diligent enquiry.^ 



\ I niust conclude this subject with observing, 



that the goose was one of the forbidden foods of 



the Britons in the time of C<£sar. 



* The flocks were very numerous in the hard winter of 

 1794-5. 



■f It may here be remarked that the Chinese goose (Arct. Zool. 

 ii. 297.) which breeds with the common species, the Canada 

 goose (ih. ii. 260.) and the Egyptian goose (Lath. Syn. vi. 453.) 

 have been introduced, and are to a certain degree domesticated in 

 Gnat Britain. Ed. 



