58 ANATID^. 



One of my notes descriptive of their mode of flight, &e., may be 

 copied : — March 9, 1839. Day beautifully bright, but very cold, 

 and the wind east. I saw, on the Antrim shore of Belfast Bay, 

 a very large flock of brent geese, apparently from 700 to 800, 

 first on wing, forming a "long, drawn-out" body, and then 

 alighting. The mingling notes of those on the water, and of the 

 others still on wing, but crowding down to join them, was so like 

 the cry of a pack of hounds, that it would have deceived any one 

 who knew not whence it really proceeded. As my walk was 

 continued, there was a constant succession of bodies of these birds 

 of from ten to twenty-five flying to join the main phalanx, until 

 probably not less than a thousand were assembled together ; — a 

 number not greater than I had frequently observed here before. 

 The whole of them looked beautiful on wing. When seen backed 

 by the sky, the black and the wliite portions of the body were 

 distinctly apparent ; — when their backs were turned towards me 

 they seemed all black, and their whole form was distinctly marked ; 

 but in another aspect, and with the land of the opposite shore as 

 a back-ground, they all shone merely white, the lower portion of 

 their plumage of that colour being alone visible. The great 

 flock did not long remain stationary, but rose en masse and flew 

 towards the entrance of the bay until entirely lost to view. The 

 appearance of the flock, though generally irregular, and " float- 

 ing in fragments" through the air — their ordinary manner of 

 flight — occasionally exhibited a series of lines, all of which be- 

 came darker towards the front, reminding me of water-spouts 

 darkening towards the end before they burst. The broken, irre- 

 gular fhght of a great body of brent geese has more than once 

 called to my mind Moore's lines, — 



" When heaven's rack, H\vist earth and sky. 

 Hangs like a shattered canopy." 



Their call is commented on in another note : — April 2, 1837. I 

 observed, to-day, when near low water, several hundred brent geese 

 standing on the ooze at the edge of the rething waves like a flock 

 of ' waders.' They were calHng at the time, and, when they rose 



