THE BERNACLE. 
47 
During the day I saw two flocks, of one or two hundred pairs, 
upon the bogs. They are, when sufficiently rested from their 
journey, sought for with great avidity by the few gunners in this 
district, and are very delicious,” &c., as already mentioned. This 
was written as (( winter was coming on.” Owing to wild geese 
being commonly called bernacle in Connaught, I cannot feel 
certain that they are not meant. Harris, in his f History of the 
County of Down/ published in 1744, after enumerating the 
“ barnacle” as one of the birds met with on the coast, remarks : 
— “ There is also the land barnacle in this county, particularly in 
a red bog in the Ardes, near Kirkistown, but the flesh of it 
is rank, unsavoury, and unfit for, at all events, the table.” 
Here, again, the wild goose may possibly be alluded to, as it fre- 
quented the locality. Land bernacle is, however, a common name 
for the species now specially under consideration, and a distinctive 
one, as the bird spends much of its time on land, whereas the 
other bernacle, properly called brent goose, lives wholly on the 
water and the sea-banks. 
At Lurgan Green immense numbers of bernacle spend all the 
year, except the period appropriated to the reproduction of their 
species ; they are about five months absent, from the middle of 
April * to that of September. This locality is known to me per- 
sonally only from my passing it on the way from Belfast to Dublin, 
which I have rarely done without seeing large flocks of these 
birds (numbering sometimes between 300 and 400) either on the 
sands or greensward little raised above it. My notes on them here, 
chiefly with regard to season; are; — March 31, 1833 ; saw a very 
large flock on the sands near the road: — April 21, 1835; none 
seen ; on inquiry of the guard of the coach, it was stated that he 
had remarked them here daily until the last eight days, when they 
had disappeared, at least from view of the road : they had probably 
migrated northward at the time he ceased to observe them : — 
November 15, 1839; a large flock was stationed at the grassy 
plain, a considerable way from the border of the sea, as I had 
* Mr. Selby, in allusion it may be presumed to tbe nortb-east of England, observes 
that, “ by the middle of March the whole have retired ’* northward (p. 269). 
