greyish; legs and bill black; iris dark brown. Total length about 25 inches, culmen 1 - G5, wing 15 - 8, 

 tail 5"9, tarsus 2 - 85. 



Adult Female. Resembles the male, but is smaller in size. 



Young. Differs from the adult in having the white on the head intermixed with black, and the feathers on 

 the upper parts are margined with dark reddish brown and blackish brown. 



The Bernacle or White-cheeked Goose, like the Brent, inhabits high latitudes during the 

 summer season, migrating southward during the winter. It is found throughout the north of 

 Europe, being tolerably widely distributed ; but, so far as I can ascertain, there is no authentic 

 information on record respecting its breeding-habits. With us in Great Britain it is a winter 

 visitant, arriving in October and remaining until April, during which time it is distributed 

 around our coasts in suitable localities ; but it is, as a rule, not so common as the Brent Goose 

 on the English coasts, and less numerous on the east coast than it used formerly to be. 

 Mr. Stevenson writes to me respecting the occurrence of this Goose in Norfolk as follows: — 

 "The term 'not uncommon,' as applied to this species by Messrs. Paget in 1834, and by Messrs. 

 Gurney and Fisher in 1846, is certainly not applicable at the present time; nor can I give any 

 satisfactory reason for its rarity of late years on our coast, even in the most severe winters. My 

 own notes for the last twenty years supply but a small list of specimens observed at long and 

 uncertain intervals, either in the Norwich market or bird-stuffers' shops ; nor have I any reason 

 to suppose that it has occurred more frequently at Lynn, the chief emporium for this class of 

 wild fowl. Mr. Dowell describes the Bernacle as only an occasional visitant at Holkham, and 

 rare at Blakeney ; and a specimen sent him from Salthouse, as late as the beginning of May 

 1846, was one of but three examples he had known killed on that part of the Norfolk coast. In 

 my own notes the first record dates back to the mild winter of 1851-52, when, as before stated, 

 wild geese of various kinds were unaccountably numerous, and amongst these, on the 20th of 

 December, two couple of Bernacles, in full adult plumage, were sent to Norwich from Hickling, 

 and on the 28th a single bird from Burlingham. In the winter of 1854-55 I saw but one 

 Bernacle Goose, killed toward the close of that most inclement season at Kimberley, on the 18th 

 February; and these, with an immature bird shot at Blakeney in November 1860, and two in 

 the Norwich market in the following January (another exceptionally severe winter), are all that 

 have come under my notice. For the last ten years I have neither seen nor heard of a Norfolk- 

 killed specimen ; nor could I ascertain that any were remarked either at Lynn or on any other 

 part of the coast throughout the long and severe winter of 1870-71." 



In Scotland this bird appears to be much commoner than in England ; and Mr. Robert Gray 

 writes (B. of W. of Scotl. p. 350) as follows : — " Throughout the Inner Hebrides the Bernacle is 

 also a well-known winter visitant to localities where there is suitable feeding-ground. I have 

 been informed by Mr. Elwes that it frequents Islay in very large flocks every year, where it 

 seems to attach itself to an island near Ardnave. Being but little disturbed there, and finding 

 plenty of grass on the island and on the sandhills of Ardnave, these flocks remain the whole 

 winter. At low water they often betake themselves to the open sands at the mouth of Loch 

 Grhuinard, but make the island their head quarters, and go but seldom to feed on the shore 



