48 ANATID.E. 



before remarked them in spring, but not so near to the road. I 

 have seen them within shot of the coach, and as regardless of its 

 passing as a flock of tame geese, indeed more so, for the latter 

 would have had the impudence to cackle, while the bernacle had 

 the good taste to remain silent. They were never feeding when 

 I observed them, though, doubtless, they partake of the pasture. 

 !No person having been permitted to fire a shot about Lurgan 

 Green was the reason of their tameness. They were captured 

 here in little pitfalls dug in the earth, without being in the least 

 degree injured. Several were so obtained at one time to be placed 

 on the aquatic menagerie at the Falls near Belfast, where they at 

 once became tame, and proved to be of a mild and gentle dispo- 

 sition, like the brent geese ; — more than can justly be said for all 

 our Anatidce. The ground alluded to, on which the bernacle was 

 seen from the coach-road, was embanked from the sea a few years 

 ago, and brought under cultivation ; since which period I have not 

 learned anything of the bird there. 



On the 20th of October, 1849, and about the same period of the 

 preceding year, flocks of about twenty bernacle were observed (by 

 the Eev. G. M. Black) flying over the sea and points of land in a 

 southerly direction off Annalong, at the base of the mountains of 

 Mourne. They were supposed to be proceeding to Lurgan Green. 

 " They flew in a line like wild geese, but differed from these birds 

 by keeping always low — about twenty yards from the sea or ground 

 — and, when viewed through a telescope, were headed by an 

 old stager, whose adult plumage was strongly defined." 



To Belfast Bay the bernacle is but a rare visitant, and chiefly 

 early in the winter ; but, at the beginning of August, a single bird 

 was once obtained. One which came under my inspection was shot 

 on the 1st of November, 1826, upon a little green islet which rises 

 above the sands at a place called Harrison^s Bay. A small flock 

 to which it belonged frequented the little green knolls rising 

 above the sands, and the boggy fields bordering the bay, for some 

 weeks. Persecution at last drove them away. One was killed 

 on the Long Strand close to the town, on the 26th of March, 

 1827, when a flock of ten birds visited this locality and the 



