58 
ANATIDiE. 
One of my notes descriptive of tlieir mode of flight, &c., may be 
copied : — March 9, 1839. Day beautifully bright, but very cold, 
and the wind east. I saw, on the Antrim shore of Belfast Bay, 
a very large flock of brent geese, apparently from 700 to 800, 
first on wing, forming a “long, drawn-out” body, and then 
alighting. The mingling notes of those on the water, and of the 
others still on wing, but crowding down to join them, was so like 
the cry of a pack of hounds, that it would have deceived any one 
who knew not whence it really proceeded. As my walk was 
continued, there was a constant succession of bodies of these birds 
of from ten to twenty-five flying to join the main phalanx, until 
probably not less than a thousand were assembled together ; — a 
number not greater than I had frequently observed here before. 
The whole of them looked beautiful on wing. When seen backed 
by the sky, the black and the white portions of the body were 
distinctly apparent ; — when their backs were turned towards me 
they seemed all black, and their whole form was distinctly marked ; 
but in another aspect, and with the land of the opposite shore as 
a back-ground, they all shone merely white, the lower portion of 
their plumage of that colour being alone visible. The great 
flock did not long remain stationary, but rose en masse and flew 
towards the entrance of the bay until entirely lost to view. The 
appearance of the flock, though generally irregular, and “ float- 
ing in fragments” through the air — their ordinary manner of 
flight — occasionally exhibited a series of lines, all of which be- 
came darker towards the front, reminding me of water-spouts 
darkening towards the end before they burst. The broken, irre- 
gular flight of a great body of brent geese has more than once 
called to my mind Moore's lines, — ■ 
“ When heaven’s rack, ’twixt earth and sky. 
Hangs like a shattered canopy.” 
Their call is commented on in another note : — April 2, 1837. I 
observed, to-day, when near low water, several hundred brent geese 
standing on the ooze at the edge of the retiring waves like a flock 
of ‘ waders.' They were calling at the time, and, when they rose 
