338 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



This Goose pairs for life, as probably all other of its congeners do, 

 and during the breeding season is more or less gregarious, 

 numbers of nests often being made in a comparatively small area. 

 The breeding grounds of this bird are wild moors and swamps. 

 The nest is made on the ground, amongst tall heather or the 

 rank, coarse vegetation of the swamps, and is a huge structure 

 sometimes more than a foot in height and three feet in diameter. 

 The materials of which it is composed vary a good deal according 

 to locality — branches of dead heath, rushes, reeds, dry grass, 

 bracken, leaves, and turf, lined, as incubation progresses, more 

 and more thickly with down and feathers plucked from the 

 breast of the female. The eggs are six or eight in number, but 

 in rare instances it is said twelve or fourteen have been found. 

 They are creamy white, and exhibit little or no gloss. They are 

 oval in form, and measure on an average 3'4S inches in length by 

 2 '35 inches in breadth. Incubation is performed by the female, 

 and lasts twenty-eight days. The male keeps close in the 

 neighbourhood of the nest, ready to warn his mate or to fight 

 fiercely if the eggs are threatened by any marauding bird or 

 beast. Only one brood is reared in the year, and as soon as the 

 young are sufficiently fledged a move to the sea is usually made. 

 The young are said to return at night and sleep in the nest for 

 some time, covered by the wings of the female. Flocks of 

 immature, non-breeding birds may often be observed in the 

 neighbourhood of the breeding grounds, waiting until the young 

 are reared, when they flock with the rest for the winter. 



Diagnostic Characters. ^^«.ff^, with the rump and wing 

 coverts slate-gray, with the bill flesh-coloured, white on the nail, 

 and with the legs and feet flesh-coloured. Length, 35 inches 

 (male) ; 30 inches (female). 



