WILD FOWL 
during the day, on grass, clover, etc., and some of the species are partial 
to grain. At night they resort to some sand -bank or other place difficult 
of access. They are gregarious birds, and when making long flights usually 
assume a wedge-shaped formation, whence the term “ a skein of geese.” 
2. — The snow-geese may be easily recognized by their white plumage, 
only the flight-feathers and their coverts being black. The bill and legs 
are red in the adult, greyish -black in the immature, which has the upper- 
parts brownish-grey and the underparts greyish -white. The teeth in the 
upper mandible are strongly developed and plainly visible when the bill 
is closed and viewed from the side. They are rare stragglers to Western 
Europe and the British Isles. 
3. — The Brent geese have the bill and legs black. The bill is less strongly 
serrated than in the grey geese and snow-geese, and the “ teeth ” in the 
upper mandible are not visible when the bill is closed and viewed from 
the side. 
The food varies in the different species, the Bernacle feeding at night 
on grass pastures near the sea, while the Brent feeds chiefly by day on 
the ooze and in shallow waters, searching for aquatic plants and sea- 
ware below the surface. 
GREY LAG-GOOSE 
ANSER ANSER 
Anser ferus, Gould, Birds Europe, v, pi. 347 (1837); Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxvii, 
p. 89 (1895). 
Anser cinereus, Dresser, Birds Europe, vi, p. 355, pi. 411 (1878); Hume & Marshall, Game 
Birds Ind., iii, p. 55, pi. vii (1880); Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. Birds, part xxvi, pi. (1893); 
Saunders, III. Man. Brit. Birds, p. 397 (1899). 
Anser rubrirostris, Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxvii, p. 91 (1895). 
Anser anser, Alpheraky, Geese of Europe, p. 24, pis. iii and xxii (1905). 
DULT male. — ^Head light brownish -grey, a little darker on 
the crown and paler on the sides of the head and throat ; 
/ back of the neck ash -brown, fore -neck greyer, the 
i n i i /W feathers of the upper part arranged in rows with furrows 
i between; back, scapulars and longer outer secondaries, 
JL^as well as the sides and flanks, ash-brown, greyish 
towards the base, and with light greyish -brown edges; lower back and 
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