The Brant 



tion he sees those grim, romantic wastes, where such creatures as these 

 may cackle and croak and charge about in unmolested abandon of hap- 

 piness. Cronk cronk cronk! you splendid trumpeter of the North! It is 

 before such a sound that the walls of our prosaic Jerichos fall down. 



And there is the interest of their undulating flight, which Nelson 

 has been at such pains to describe. 1 After noting that this species, unlike 

 the Branta canadensis group, assumes a horizontal line in flight, the 

 observer continues: "There is barely room enough between the indi- 

 viduals to allow a free wing-stroke. Thus ranged, the flock seems gov- 

 erned by a single impulse, which sends it gliding along parallel and close 

 to the ground, then, apparently without any reason, careering thirty or 

 forty yards overhead only to descend to its former level as suddenly as it 

 was left; now it sways to one side and then to the other, while at short 

 intervals swift undulations seem to run from one end of the line to the 

 other. ... A bird at either end of the flock rises or descends a few 

 inches or several feet, as the case may be, and the movement is instantly 

 followed in succession by every one of its companions till the extreme bird 

 is reached and the entire flock is on the new level ; or, it may be that a bird 

 near the middle of the line changes its position, when the motion extends 

 in two directions at once. These latter changes are made so regularly and 

 with such rapidity that the distance between the birds does not appear 

 altered in the least, while a motion exactly like a graceful undulation runs 

 the length of the flock, lifting or depressing it to the level of the originator 

 of the movement. These changes present to one's eye as the flocks 

 approach, keeping close to the ground, the appearance of a series of regular 

 and swift waving-motions such as pass along a pennant in a slight breeze." 



A report that the fortunes of these birds are given over to the sole 

 keeping of California'- proves to be quite at variance with the facts. It 

 may be true that the Black Sea Brant no longer visits the waters of Lower 

 California in such numbers as formerly, but it is certain that the birds 

 winter commonly on Puget Sound, the Gulf of Georgia, and in the coastal 

 waters of British Columbia generally. Suckley, writing in the Fifties, says 

 explicitly: "These Brant are extremely abundant about the Straits of 

 Fuca in winter." 3 I have myself seen hundreds of them feeding on Semi- 

 ahmoo Bay, near the 49th Parallel, in midwinter, and am under the im- 

 pression that the bulk of the species will be found at that season north of 

 the Columbia River. Nevertheless, it is true that certain sheltered bays 

 of the Californian coast have always been favored places of resort, and 

 immense numbers still repair in winter to Humboldt, Bodega, and 



l " Habits of the Black Brant in the Vicinity of St. Michaels, Alaska," by E. W. Nelson, Bulletin of Nuttall 

 Ornithological Club. Vol. VI.. July. 1881. pp. 131-138. 



2 "The Game Birds of California" bv Grinnell, Bryant and Storer (1018), p. 241. 

 'Cooper and Suckley. Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., Vol. XII., pt. II. (i860), p. 352. 



I87I 



