APPENDIX. 449 



glass, and could distinguish the red colour of the beak and feet. They 

 never associated with the other geese, but invariably were four or five 

 hundred yards from them when on the same bog, and often were to be 

 found on another bog miles from them.* The bean goose is in great 

 numbers, but the most numerous is the white-fronted, in the propor- 

 tion, I should think, of about fifty white-fronted to ten bean geese : 

 they arrive at Michaelmas, in small parties, which join together after 

 their arrival ; the bean and white-fronted remain together, but not 

 mixed, and when alarmed each species flies in a^separate flock. During 

 the severity of winter they remain on the bogs in the day-time, but 

 often pass from one to the other, and at night come to feed in the 

 tiirloghs, or winter lakes, arriving at a much later hour than the 

 ducks. When spring has replaced winter, they spend more of their 

 time in low bottoms than in the bogs, but always fly to the latter on 

 being disturbed, and about three or four in the afternoon resort to some 

 small lake, where they remain in the middle till towards midnight, 

 sometimes till just before daybreak, when they come to the shores to 

 feed on the coarse grass, or rather on the roots of the grass. They take 

 their departure at the end of April, a few remaining till the beginning 

 of May, or, as the country -people say, ' they never go till they have 

 had three fills of the green corn.' They congregate from all parts to 

 the small lakes (in particular, one called Kill) for some short time be- 

 fore they go off, and all take their departure in one or two enormous 

 flocks, steering north-east. At Michaelmas, when the geese first come, 

 they are very easily shot. Large numbers of bernacle and brent geese 

 also pay a short visit at that time, in fact, on their way to the east side 

 of Ireland, and again in the end of April, for a fortnight, after their 

 departure from this side of the country. The country-people call the 

 brent geese American geese, — why, I cannot tell. They shoot great 

 numbers of bean and white-fronted geese, and salt them. On Easter 

 Monday, the whole male population turn out to shoot geese and hunt 

 for wild ducks' eggs. Some of the wliite-fronted geese which I shot 

 in the end of March had just got the full black bars on the breast ; 

 the boys say they have sometimes found their eggs in the bogs be- 

 fore they go away, but that none over remain to breed. Two, which 

 I had wounded and could not get, remained on the lake of Kill for a 



* In January, this year, a grey lag goose was sent to me from tlic ueigliboiuliooJ 

 of Dundalk, and I saw another, from Meath, in the Dublin market. 



VOL. III. 3 H 



