BIRDS 245 



Brent Goose in his Catalogue, and as his list was almost entirely 

 restricted to the species represented by specimens preserved in 

 his own collection, the probability that he met with it himself 

 is a strong one, especially as T. C. Heysham undoubtedly did so. 

 But though this Black Goose has probably always paid more or 

 less annual visits to our coast, there can be no doubt that its 

 appearances are irregular, and that, in the absence of any feed- 

 ing-grounds adapted to its peculiar retirements, it never stays 

 long with us. Both dark and light-breasted birds occur on our 

 estuaries. During the winter 1885-86, some fifteen individuals 

 were shot on the English Solway, and these were dark-bellied. 

 On the 11th of January 1861 the late W. T. Mackenzie had 

 the remarkable good fortune to kill four Brent Geese at one 

 shot, on the Eden near Carlisle, with a gun built by Wallace of 

 Wigton ; these were dark-breasted. A bird which I found 

 washed up dead on the beach near Maryport, in March 1888, 

 belonged to the same race as those just mentioned. I am dis- 

 posed to think that the light-breasted birds really occur rather 

 the most frequently on our coast, where we should naturally 

 look for the Atlantic type to predominate. The species usually 

 occurs with us in small bunches. Mr. W. Nicol, whose life is 

 spent on the Solway, and has therefore exceptional opportunities 

 of observing such a species as the present, shot a single Brent 

 near Silloth on November 11, 1888, saw five others in December, 

 and a flock of these Geese below Silloth in March 1889. While 

 shrimping on the coast west of Silloth, on August 25, 1889, 

 Mr. Nicol obtained a close view of a solitary, white-breasted 

 Brent, which twice flew round him. It came from the Scottish 

 side, and had perhaps passed the summer on the estuary of the 

 Nith. He saw a party of five Brent Geese on the Wampool in 

 October that year, but they only stayed a few days. He shot, 

 and sent to Mr. Tandy, a light-breasted Brent in January 1890. 

 In the severe winter of 1880-81, when the Solway Viaduct was 

 broken by the masses of drift-ice piled against its supports, Mr. 

 Nicol saw a flock of more than a hundred of these Geese flying 

 up the Solway Firth in an easterly direction. Bryson, another 

 gunner of long standing, tells me that he once worked up to a 

 lot of about sixty Brent Geese in the Solway, in the spring of 



