WILD FOWL 
BRENT GOOSE 
BRANTA BERNICLA 
(Plate XXVII, Fig. 7) 
Anser brenta, Gould, Birds Europe, v, pi. 352 (1837). 
Bernicla brenta, Dresser, Birds Europe, vi, p. 389, pi. 415, fig. 2 (1877); Lilford, Col. Fig. 
Brit. Birds, part xxiv, pi. (1893); Saunders, III. Man. Brit. Birds, p. 411 (1899). 
Branta bernicla, Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxvii, p. 119 (1895); Alph^raky, Geese 
of Europe, p. 150, pis. xvi and xxiv (1905). 
DULT male. — Head, neck, upper mantle and upper breast 
black, sharply defined from the brownish -grey colour 
/ of the rest of the upper- and underparts*; an oblique 
/ patch of white on each side of the neck; feathers of the 
g rump considerably lengthened; upper and under tail- 
^ coverts white; sides and flanks tipped with whitish and 
forming a series of bars; thighs dark grey; quills black, wing-coverts 
grey; tail black; axillaries dark smoky-grey. Iris dark brown; bill, legs 
and toes black with an olive-green tinge on the tarsal joint and toes. 
Total length about 24 inches; bill 1'4 inch; wing 13*0 inches; tail 
3 '8 inches; tarsus 2*4 inches. 
Adult female . — Similar to the male, but rather smaller; wing about 
12*0 inches. 
General distribution . — ^The breeding-range of the Brent goose lies to 
the north of the Arctic Circle, in Kolguev, Novaya Zemlia, Franz Josef 
Land and Spitzbergen. It is not known to breed on the mainland of Euro- 
pean Russia, but it probably does so on the tundra of the Kaninsk Peninsula 
and Yalmal. Eastwards it has been found nesting near the mouth of the 
Yenesei and on the Taimyr Peninsula, but beyond that point its range 
is uncertain, and its place is taken by the black Brent {Branta nigricans) 
with a complete white collar on the neck and a black belly, which breeds 
from the Lena eastwards to Bering Strait and in Western North America. 
In winter the Brent migrates to the Faeroe Islands, and vast numbers are 
met with on the shores of Western Europe, Scandinavia, North Germany, 
Denmark, Holland, Belgium and Northern France, and sometimes as 
‘^Obs . — In the Hght>bellied forni (fi. glaucogaster) which inhabits Greenland and Arctic America all the feathers 
of the breast and upper belly are tipped with whitish, giving these parts a much lighter and distinctly mottled 
appearance, and the white on the lower belly extends further up towards the breast. This form is often met with in 
British waters among flocks of Brent. 
317 
