38 
ANATIDJE. 
although that should be sometimes in a west or south-west direc- 
tion. They are very numerous on the extensive flat bogs and 
swamps of those counties. The most plentiful are the bean 
goose,, called erroneously by the country people the barnacle 
goose. I have shot hundreds of them. The duck and teal were 
so plentiful there that the gentry never made use of other water- 
fowl, so geese, wigeon, &c., used to fall to my own share, and 
no inconsiderable quantity of them.” 
I have seen various specimens of the bean goose which had 
been purchased in the market of Dublin, where neither it nor any 
species of wild goose is in esteem for the table. At Waterford it 
has been obtained ; * * * § about Youghal was considered rare, but is 
noted in the f Fauna of Cork' as occasionally plentiful in some 
parts of that county. It visits the bogs in the northern parts 
of Kerry every winter in large numbers.! Many persons, who 
have attended to native birds in Ireland, know little more of wild 
geese than by seeing them pass on wing ; and consequently are 
ignorant of the species; — this applies, among other places, to 
Roundstone, on the coast of Connemara, which is named on 
account of its western position. J They are met with in great 
numbers on the Bog of Allen during the winter months, and 
small flocks are very often seen flying over the town of Clonmel, 
on the mountains near to which they are "met with occasionally, 
but, being extremely wary, are seldom shot.§ 
The Rev. G. M. Black remarks : — “ Although wild geese 
appear to be slow on the wing, they can, when pressed, make 
good way. I saw a large flock pursued by an adult sea-eagle, 
A. albicilla (the white tail being distinctly visible), near Clough, 
county of Antrim, in the winter of 1832, but this bird did not, 
within my sight, overtake or appear to gain much on them. They 
were heading towards a lough at a short distance.” 
Mr. Yarrell, after mentioning that a gander of the grey lag at 
* Dr. R. J. Burkitt, f Mr. R. Chute. 
X The grey lag and bean geese are not found in North America, but the white- 
fronted goose is. 
§ Mr. R. Davis, jun. 
