OUR WILD GEESE 167 



times passed over our North Kent marsh-lands, and 

 strange confused cries were the result — -cries that 

 often filled our superstitious folk with terror. 

 Then it was that many of the fowlers would keep 

 indoors, because, as they said, " there's bad luck when 

 the Hell-hounds is on the hunt." Except during 

 exceptionally hard weather, however, the Bernacle 

 Goose is very rare on our southern coast. It is 

 less uncommon on the western parts of our shores ; 

 and it visits Lancashire and Cumberland freely. 

 About the Solway Firth many are seen at times 

 during the late autumn and the winter. Those 

 geese which have been already noticed feed on 

 grass, clover, and grain. To procure this food 

 they frequent meadows, marshes, and cultivated 

 land, retiring for rest to sand-bars that are not 

 quite awash, or to other lonely places where they 

 will be safe. But the Brent Goose has different 

 habits. It is a sea-bird, keeping out on the tide, 

 coming in to visit the mud-flats when the water has 

 left them, in order to feed on the marine plants, 

 more particularly on grass-wrack {Zostera marina) 

 and laver ( £/&« latissima), both of which grow so 

 plentifully on certain mud-flats. 



This goose, which visits us from northern lands, 

 from the time of its arrival to that of its departure, is 

 the goose to which fowlers both on the tide and on 

 the shore give nearly all their attention, for a good 

 shot at the black geese pays a shore-shooter well, 

 and is very satisfactory sport to gentlemen-fowlers 

 on the tide. 



