38 ANATID^E. 



altliough that should be sometimes in a west or south-west direc- 

 tion. They arc very numerous on the extensive flat bogs and 

 swamps of those counties. The .most plentiful are the bean 

 goose, called erroneously by the country people the barnacle 

 goose. I have shot hundreds of them. The duck and teal were 

 so plentiful there that the gentry never made use of other water- 

 fowl, so geese, wigeon, &c., used to fall to my own share, and 

 no inconsiderable quantity of them." 



I have seen various specimens of the bean goose which had 

 been purchased in the market of Dublin, where neither it nor any 

 species of wild goose is in esteem for the table. At Waterford it 

 has been obtained ; * about Youghal was considered rare, but is 

 noted in the ' Fauna of Cork' as occasionally plentiful in some 

 parts of that county. It visits the bogs in the northern parts 

 of Kerry every winter in large numbers. t Many persons, who 

 have attended to native bii'ds in Ireland, know little more of wild 

 geese than by seeing them pass on wing ; and consequently are 

 ignorant of the species; — this applies, among other places, to 

 Roundstone, on the coast of Connemara, which is named on 

 account of its western position. { They are met with in gi-eat 

 numbers on the Bog of Allen during the winter months, and 

 small flocks are very often seen flying over the town of Cloumel, 

 on the mountains near to which they are met with occasionally, 

 but, being extremely wary, are seldom shot.§ 



The Eev. G. M. Black remarks : — " Altliough wild geese 

 appear to be slow on the wing, they can, when pressed, make 

 good way. I saw a large flock pursued by an adult sea-eagle, 

 A. alhkilla (the white tail being distinctly visible), near Clougli, 

 county of Antrim, in the winter of 1832, but this bird did not, 

 within my sight, overtake or appear to gain much on them. They 

 were heading towards a lough at a short distance." 



Mr. Yarrell, after mentioning that a gander of the grey lag at 



* Dr. R. J. Burkitt. f Mr. R. Chute. 



\ The grey lap; ami beau geese are not found in North America, but the white- 

 fronted goose is. 



§ Mr. It. Davis, jun. 



