CATALOGUE OF CANADIAN BIRDS. I29 



ground, and only raises a note of alarm when well away from the 

 nest. The young are hatched from the middle of June until the 

 middle of July. (Nelson.) 



173. Brant. 



Branta bernicla (Linn.) Scopoli. 1769. 



Said not to breed in Greenland lower than lat. 70°, but does so 

 in great numbers on the Polar sea. {Ard. Man.) One of the first 

 birds of passage to arrive on EUsemere island. Their nests were 

 found on islets in the sea or rivers and on the great plains. (£. Bay.) 

 This species breeds in numbers on the coasts and islands of Hudson 

 bay and the Arctic sea, and is rarely seen in the interior. (Richard- 

 son.) 



This species is a very Abundant migrant on the whole Atlantic 

 coast (north of Hudson strait) filling at times the heads of all the 

 bays and feeding on seaweed, chiefly of the genus Ulva. It is 

 quite frequent in the St. Lawrence and is known to ascend the Ottawa 

 to thirty miles below the city. It is casual in Lake Ontario and said 

 to be a rare migrant in western Ontario. Occasionally seen in 

 Manitoba but not to the west of that province. 



On the 13th December, 1903 I noticed a bunch of six brant near 

 Comox, Vancouver island, that kept separate from the large numbers 

 of black brant in the harbour; after a hard bit of work I managed 

 to kill one of them, which proved to be an adult female of the Atlantic 

 species. The others were undoubtedly an old male and three young 

 of the same species as they all looked very light coloured. The 

 specimen secured is in every way typical bernicla, with interrupted 

 collar, and sharply defined black breast, against the pale grayish 

 lower surface. It was very fat. I have since found that the eastern 

 brant is a fairly common migrant on the Pacific coast. Since shoot- 

 ing the first specimen, I have killed seven others, and have seen a 

 number of small bands that, as a rule, keep separate from the black 

 brant. I should say about eight per cent of the brant in Comox 

 bay are the eastern species. Only once have I killed both species 

 out of the same flock. There seems to be no tendency to inter- 

 gradation, unless the uniting of the neck patches in one bernicla 

 might be so considered. This was an adult male, in all other respects 

 typical bernicla, and the collar was barely united by the slightest 

 white tipping. (Brooks.) 

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