ASHY-HEADED UPLAND GOOSE 135 



set up by the farmers to frighten them. While com- 

 mitting their depredations they are exceedingly wary 

 and difficult to shoot, but at night, when they con- 

 gregate by the water-side, they give the sportsman 

 a better chance. I have succeeded in killing as many 

 as five at a shot by stalking them under cover of the 

 darkness ; and a more deliciously-flavoured game- 

 bird than this Goose I have never tasted. 



They are social birds, always going in large flocks, 

 and are very loquacious, the female having a deep 

 honking note, while the male responds with a clear 

 whistling, like the Sanderling's note etherealised. 



ASHY-HEADED UPLAND GOOSE 

 Bernida potiocephata 



Head, neck, and scapulars leaden grey; breast and upper back chest- 

 nut, banded with black ; abdomen, under wing-coverts, and bend of 

 the wing white ; primaries black ; secondaries white ; greater wing- 

 coverts black, edged with green and tipped with white ; lower back 

 and tail black ; bill black, feet yellow ; length a4> wing 13.5 inches. 

 Female similar. 



This Patagonian Goose migrates northwards in 

 winter, and appears on the Rio Negro and in the 

 Buenos-Ayrean pampas in May, usually in small 

 flocks, but sometimes as many as one or two hundred 

 are seen together. The extreme limit of their winter 

 migration appears to be about sixty miles south of 

 Buenos Ayres city, on the plains near the river 



