48 
ANATIDj®. 
before remarked them in spring, but not so near to the road. T 
have seen them within shot of the coach, and as regardless of its 
passing as a flock of tame geese, indeed more so, for the latter 
would have had the impudence to cackle, while the bernacle had 
the good taste to remain silent. They were never feeding when 
I observed them, though, doubtless, they partake of the pasture. 
No person having been permitted to fire a shot about Lurgan 
Green was the reason of their tameness. They were captured 
here in little pitfalls dug in the earth, without being in the least 
degree injured. Several were so obtained at one time to be placed 
on the aquatic menagerie at the Tails near Belfast, where they at 
once became tame, and proved to be of a mild and gentle dispo- 
sition, like the brent geese; — more than can justly be said for all 
our Anatidce . The ground alluded to, on which the bernacle was 
seen from the coach-road, was embanked from the sea a few years 
ago, and brought under cultivation ; since which period I have not 
learned anything of the bird there. 
On the 20th of October, 1849, and about the same period of the 
preceding year, hocks of about twenty bernacle were observed (by 
the Bev. G. M. Black) flying over the sea and points of land in a 
southerly direction off Annalong, at the base of the mountains of 
Mourne. They were supposed to be proceeding to Lurgan Green. 
“ They flew in a line like wild geese, but differed from these birds 
by keeping always low — about twenty yards from the sea or ground 
— and, when viewed through a telescope, were headed by an 
old stager, whose adult plumage was strongly defined.” 
To Belfast Bay the bernacle is but a rare visitant, and chiefly 
early in the winter ; but, at the beginning of August, a single bird 
was once obtained. One which came under my inspection was shot 
on the 1st of November, 1826, upon a little green islet which rises 
above the sands at a place called Harrison's Bay. A small flock 
to which it belonged frequented the little green knolls rising 
above the sands, and the boggy fields bordering the bay, for some 
weeks. Persecution at last drove them away. One was killed 
on the Long Strand close to the town, on the 26th of March, 
1827, when a flock of ten birds visited this locality and the 
