Geese 



water to pass the night afloat. Certain localities become favorite 

 stopping places for these birds of passage, and they return to 

 them year after year, unless harassed by the gunners beyond en- 

 durance ; but such resorts become rarer every season. In early 

 winter the young of the year are as delicious a game bird as 

 finds its way to the gunner's pouch ; but old birds taken in the 

 spring migration defy the inroads of any tooth not canine. 



Because it nests so very far to the north, the life history of 

 this goose is still incomplete. According to Saunders, the nest 

 is composed of grasses, moss, etc., lined with down and made 

 on the ground. Four smooth and creamy white eggs fill it. 



The Black Brant (Branta nigricans), a name sometimes 

 applied to the white-fronted goose to distinguish jt from the 

 white brant or snow goose, is the western representative of the 

 preceding species and of only casual occurrence on the Atlantic 

 coast. It may be readily distinguished from its ally by its darker 

 under parts and the white markings on the front as well as the 

 sides of its neck. Their habits are almost identical. Both these 

 " barnacle geese " take their name, not from their fondness for 

 the little crustacean, for they are almost vegetarians, but from the 

 absurd fable that they grew out of barnacles attached to wood in 

 the sea. Some etymologists claim that the word brant is derived 

 from the Italian word branta, coming from branca, a branch ; but 

 these geese have nothing to do with branches, unlike the Canada 

 geese that sometimes nest in trees ; and we may more confidently 

 accept Dr. Coues's statement that brant means simply burnt, the 

 dark color of the goose suggesting its having been charred. 



142 



