THE BERNACLE. 
49 
neighbouring pasture-fields. At the end of September 183 0, a ber- 
nacle was obtained at Kilroot, below Carrickfergus, and in November 
1833, six were shot about the same time on the banks, at different 
parts of the bay, within two miles of Belfast. Early in the winter 
of 1846, one was seen on a bank in company with curlews. A 
bernacle was noted as being on sale in the market of this town on 
the 14th, and six on the 19th of September, 1837 ; but, as it is not 
mentioned where they were procured, the only use of the note is 
to show that at the time, the species was on some part of the 
coast; — these birds may have been brought from Lurgan Green. 
On Ballydrain Lake, a beautiful sheet of fresh water near Belfast, 
covering about twenty acres, (and, perhaps, five English miles in a 
direct line from the sea,) a flock of eleven bernacle was seen by 
Mr. Darragh on the 2nd of April, 1849. It was stated by persons 
living on its borders, that these birds had frequented the locality 
for a considerable part of the winter. They were very wild, 
keeping about the middle of the lake, and, when any person ap- 
proached its margin, they took wing to its opposite extremity. 
During the entire day they remained on the water, but were not ob- 
served by night, when, probably, they fed on the short grass upon 
the banks. In the following winter three bernacle made their 
appearance here at the latter end of November; soon afterwards, 
two, and before long, four more joined them. These nine birds re- 
mained until the end of the first week in Eebruary, when, farm- 
ing operations being commenced on one side of the lake, they 
took their departure. Eour of them appeared again several times 
during the ensuing week, but the bustle of the season always 
frightened them away. This is the only instance known to me of 
the species resorting to fresh water in the north of Ireland. On 
the 15th of Eebruary, a female bernacle in fine condition, and 
probably one of the same birds, was shot at “the bog meadows,” 
about three miles distant. Its stomach was filled with the sham- 
rock trefoil — Trifolium repens (of which there were a few pieces 
from four to six inches in length that had been pulled up by the 
root), pieces of Ranunculi, and grasses. 
The only regular haunt of the bernacle known to me during 
vol. m. e 
