244 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



Mr. J. N. Robinson received a good description of the same 

 birds from one of the fishermen on the Eden. We ourselves 

 searched for them unsuccessfully until the 2 2d of January. On 

 that day I walked beside the Eden with Mr. Thorpe, hoping 

 to fall in with some Smews, and to our surprise obtained a fine 

 view of four Snow Geese flighting down the Eden valley at a 

 good height. The atmosphere was fortunately clear, and we thus 

 secured a good opportunity of watching the birds as they swung 

 round a bend of the river. Their anserine flight, and compara- 

 tively short necks (as compared with swans) were as convincing 

 to our incredulity as the contrast of the black flights to the 

 snowy body plumage. Mr. Thorpe is quite as experienced in 

 the flight of wild-fowl as myself, and having a cosmopolitan 

 acquaintance with birds, his opinion was perhaps worth more 

 than that of one who has perforce confined his attention hitherto 

 to the birds of Western Europe. We tried to mark down these 

 Geese. They disappeared from view behind a distant clump of 

 trees on the other side of the river. We searched for them 

 diligently on the following day, but never saw them again. Mr. 

 Thorpe, however, secured his revenge, for these birds having 

 outwitted us, in November of the same year, when he stalked 

 another party of Snow Geese on a creek in the North-west 

 Territory, eventually securing a fine old gander. 



BRENT GOOSE. 



Bernicla brenla (Pall.). 



The earliest mention of this species, as frequenting the north- 

 west coast of England, appears to be that of John Denton, who, 

 writing in 1610, derives the name of the township of Rotington, 

 near Whitehaven, from the ' Rotgeese,' i.e. ' Root Geese,' refer- 

 ring to the habits of the bird. He says, ' Rotington, villa ad 

 Praia Rotinge, so called because it was usually haunted with 

 Barnacles, Rotgeese, and wild-fowl before it was inhabited.' 1 

 This local name has latterly become entirely obsolete. 



Coming to more recent times, Dr. Heysham included the 

 1 Denton's Account of Cumberland, p. 25. 



