THE BRENT GOOSE. 
53 
and when rotten is good manure for land : * and from this sweet grass 
it is supposed proceeds the sweetness of their flesh ; they are taken 
by nets set in proper places on the shores. ’Tis observable that the divers 
and wigeons, which are very rank and unsavoury elsewhere, undergo 
the same change of their flesh when they feed in this place” (p. 192). 
Harris, in his c History of the county of Down 5 (1744), says of the 
“Barnacle, called by the English, Brant Goose,” — “All along the flat 
oozy sands, from Three-mile Water to Belfast and Holy wood, grows a 
very sweet grass aflbrding food to great flocks of these birds, as well as 
to duck, wigeon, and teal, all which are as good here as in any part 
of Ireland, and some imagine them better than in the neighbouring 
loughs of Strangford and Larne ; but this is only the effect of fancy, 
for they often fly from one lough to another, and feed promiscuously. 
“ They are birds of passage, and know their seasons so well that they 
arrive every year in the north parts of Ireland, on or very near a cer- 
tain day, that is, the first flights of them, for they do not always come 
together. They are seldom seen sooner than the 24th of August, and 
are rarely missed about that time. But they are not so regular in 
their flights from this country,' some going away in April, and some 
staying till the middle of May. * * * After their young are 
ready for a strong flight, they return to us, by which time they find 
a new harvest of sea-grass ready for them here” (p. 234). 
Smith, in his 4 History of the county of Waterford, 5 completed in 
1745, speaks of — “Barnacles, which we have in plenty in winter, 
being of as good a relish as at Londonderry, Wexford, or elsewhere; 
we have the same kind of grass described in the appendix to Boate’s 
4 Natural History of Ireland, 5 which it is said they feed upon, and 
which gives them that peculiar sweetness in those places where this 
grass is found. The roots of this grass are white and tender, and of 
a sweetness resembling liquorice ; great quantities of it are often cast 
up on the coast after a storm.” 
In Mason’s 4 Statistical Account of Ireland’ (vol. iii. p. 400), pub- 
lished in 1819, the following notice of wild-fowl appears in a history 
of the 4 Union of Tacumshane [county of Wexford], by the Rev. Wm. 
* This plant, the grass-wrack [Zoster a marina), or sleech-grass of Belfast Bay, is 
still used most extensively as manure by farmers, both poor and rich, who are little 
aware how much they are indebted to the brent geese, wigeon, and other wild-fowl, 
for rooting it up. Partaking themselves of but a small portion of the plant, these 
birds let the remainder float off to the shore, where it is appropriated by man to his use. 
