164 
THE BRANT. 
abled to settle the question of their identity in my own mind, 
I shall, for the present, let the affair rest.” 
THE BRANT.— ANAS BERNICLA — Plate LXXII. Fig. 1. 
Le cravant, Briss. vi. p. 304, 16, pi. 31 Buff. ix. p. 87. — Bew. ii. p. 277. — 
Lath. Syn. iii. p. 467 Arct. Zool. No. 478 Peole's Museum, No. 2704. 
BERNICLA BRENT A.— Stephens.* 
Bernicla brenta, Steph. Cont. Sh. Zool. xii. p. 46. — Oie cravant, Temm. Man. ii. 
p. 824 Anser brenta, Flem. Br. Anim. p. 127. — Anser bernicla, North. Zool. 
ii. p. 469 Brent, or Boord goose, Mont. Orn. Diet, and Supp Bew. Br. 
Birds, ii. p. 311. — Brent bernicle, Selby, Illust. Br. Orn. pi. 65. 
The brant, or, as it is usually written, brent, is a bird well 
known on both continents, and celebrated in former times 
throughout Europe for the singularity of its origin, and the 
strange transformations it was supposed to undergo previous 
to its complete organization. Its first appearance was said to 
be in the form of a barnacle shell adhering to old water-soaked 
logs, trees, or other pieces of wood taken from the sea. Of 
this goose-bearing tree, Gerard, in his Herbal, published in 
1597, has given a formal account, and seems to have reserved 
it for the conclusion of his work as being the most wonderful 
of all he had to describe. The honest naturalist, however, 
though his belief was fixed, acknowledges that his own personal 
information was derived from certain shells which adhered to 
a rotten tree that he dragged out of the sea between Dover 
and Romney, in England ; in some of which he found living 
things without forme or shape ; in others which were nearer 
* Stephens first applied this title, as a generic one, to a considei’able num- 
ber of birds, and gives, as their characters, “ distinguished from the geese 
by their shorter and slenderer beak, the edges of vrhich are reflected over the 
lamelljB, and obstruct the view of them.” We shall consider the form to which 
that title should be restricted to be that of the present — the B. erythropus, and 
B. rvficollis. Many of those admitted by Stephens show very different charac- 
ters, and will range elsewhere. — Ed. 
