200 THE BIRDS OF DEVON. 



Order ANSERES. 



Family ANATID^. 



THE GEESE. 

 The great skeins, or " gaggles," of Wild Geese, on 

 leaving their breeding-haunts on the tundras of Northern 

 Europe, seek their winter-quarters in the south by the 

 routes of the Baltic and the German Ocean, and are, in 

 consequence, chiefly to be found as winter visitors to our 

 Eastern Counties, those which reach the shores of Devon- 

 shire being very few in number in comparison. The 

 Pink-footed Goose, which in the winter has been seen in 

 •flocks of six or seven hundred in Norfolk, and makes its 

 appearance in that county witli great regularity, so rarely 

 extends its flight to the West that we have never heard of 

 a single well-authenticated instance of it in Devonshire, 

 Cornwall, or Somerset, and Mr. Mansel-Pleydell was only 

 able to record two Dorsetshire examples. It is very 

 doubtful if this Goose has ever occurred in Ireland, so that 

 it affords a very good example of the preference given by 

 the Wild Geese to our Eastern coasts. At the time to 

 which our own experience reaches back the White-fronted 

 or Laughing Goose and the Brent Goose were winter 

 visitors regularly seen in both North and South Devon, and 

 in severe weather were occasionally observed in consider- 

 able numbers. A few examples of the fine Grey Lag Goose 

 and of the Barnacle Goose used also to be obtained, while 

 the Bean-Goose was a pretty regular winter visitor in 

 small flocks. At the present day the visits of Wild Geese 

 to any part of our Devonshire coast are rare events. 

 Their old haunts are much more disturbed ; there are 

 now twenty gunners on the look out for them where there 



