THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
BARNACLE-GOOSE 
BRANTA LEUCOPSIS 
(Plate XXVII, Fig. 8) 
A nser leucopsis, Gould, Birds Europe, v, pi. 350 (1837). 
Bernicla leucopsis, Dresser, Birds Europe, vi, p. 397, pi. 415, fig. 1 (1878) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. 
Brit. Birds, part xi, pi. (1889) ; Saunders, III. Man. Brit. Birds, p. 409 (1899). 
Branta leucopsis, Salvador!, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xxvii, p. 117 (1895). 
Leucopareia leucopsis, Alph^raky, Geese of Europe, p. 171, pis. xx and xxiv (1905). 
DULT male. — Front of the head, cheeks and throat white; 
a line of black from the bill to the eye; hinder part of 
/ ^ the crown, neck, back, rump and chest black; upper 
t tail -coverts white; sides and flanks pale grey tipped 
i with white; thighs black edged with white; rest of the 
underparts pure white; scapulars, lesser, median and 
greater secondary wing-coverts grey, tipped with black and edged with 
white ; greater primary coverts and quills grey with dark tips ; axillaries 
pale grey. Iris dark brown; bill, legs and toes black. Total length about 
27 inches; bill 1*3 inch; wing 16*0 inches; tail 5*0 inches; tarsus 2*8 
inches. 
Adult female. — ^Rather smaller than the male. Wing, about 15*0 inches. 
General distribution. — The breeding -range of the Bernacle- goose is 
still very imperfectly known, but it has been found nesting in Eastern 
Greenland in Scoresby Land, above 70° N. latitude, in Spitzbergen and in 
limited numbers in the Lofoden Islands. It probably also nests in Iceland, 
Kolguev, Novaya Zemlia, Franz Josef Land and North-western Siberia 
as far east as the Taimyr Peninsula. On migration it is an autumn-visitor 
to South Greenland, Iceland, the Faeroes, the North Sea and Baltic, and 
to the north-western coasts of Europe generally, Scandinavia, Russia, 
Denmark, etc. It is sometimes met with in Southern Spain and Italy, 
and has been known to wander to Mogador and the Azores, where an 
example killed on the Furnas Lake, San Miguel, is preserved in the Ponta 
Delgada Museum; while individuals have occurred in North America, 
in Hudson’s Bay and in several of the Eastern United States. 
Distribution in the British Isles. — In the British Isles it is a regular 
autumn- visitor to the Shetlands and Orkneys, but does not appear to 
winter in the former islands. Though met with sparingly on the east 
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