142 AMERICAN GAME. 
which in my opinion is inferior both to the Canada and the 
Brent Goose; and though I have heard the Snow-Goose 
highly lauded for its delicacy and juiciness, I believe we 
shall do no injustice io any in declaring the Brant, facile 
et nullo discrimine princeps. 
It is worthy of remark that the habits of this bird are 
greatly different in England and in this country, inasmuch 
as there they.are stated “to spend the winter months in 
the rivers, lakes and marshes in the interior parts, feed- 
ing materially upon the roots and also the blades of the 
long, coarse grasses, and plants which grow in the wa- 
.” Were they are entirely marine birds, frequenting 
ter. 
the outer estuaries of the large rivers, the land-locked 
lagoons or sea bays, which lie between our outer beaches 
and the shores proper of the continent, for so many de- 
grees of latitude along our Atlantic seaboard, and never, 
so far as [know or have heard, entering our rivers proper, 
or being ‘killed in any fresh inland waters. So 
strongly is this peculiarity marked in the Brent Goose, 
that when they leave their feeding-crounds to the 
northward, compelled by stress of climate in winter, for 
lower latitudes, and again when they take their depart- 
ure for the Arctic regions, impelled 
creandse * 
Prolis amore, gravique cupidine nidificandi, 
* By the affection for the young which they are about to rear, and 
the urgent desire of nidification—Lucretius on Brent Geese. 
