252 
ZOOLOGY. 
Hutchins’s brant appears to be the most abundant of the goose tribe along the coast of this 
Territory, where they appear in large flocks in October, and remain about the bays during 
most of the winter, disappearing only in the coldest month for a short time. They feed 
principally on the mud flats at low tide, eating vegetable and animal food which they find there. 
Among large numbers that I have examined, I have never observed the peculiar differences 
characterizing the white-necked brant.—C. 
BERNICLA NIGRICANS, (Lawrence,) Cassin. 
Black Brant. 
Anser nigricans, Lawrence, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. IV, 1846, 171 ; plate. 
Bernicla nigricans, Cassin, Ill. I, ii, 1853, 52 ; pi. x.— Baird, Gen. Rep. Birds, 1858, 767. 
Sp. Ch. —Head, neck, and body anterior to the wings deep black, passing into dark sooty plumbeous on the rest of the 
body; this color beneath extending nearly to the anus, and above shading insensibly into the black of the rump. Middle of 
the throat with a white patch extending round on the sides, and somewhat streaked with black. No white on the eyelids. 
Sides of rump and of base of tail, with upper and under tail coverts concealing the tail, and space across the anus, white ; 
primary and secondary quills and tail black. Feathers on the sides of the body beneath wings like the belly, but with white 
tips. The measurements given in the general report are as follows : Length, 29 inches ; wing, 13.80 ; tarsus, 2.30 ; commissure, 
1.50. A female obtained by Dr. Suckley, near Port Townsend, Washington Territory, measured differently: Length, 23.75 
inches ; extent, 44.75 ; wing, 12.75 ; commissure, 1.50 ; from angle of eye to tip of bill, 2.25 ; height of bill at the base, 0.87; 
bill along ridge, 1.31 ; tarsus, 2.25 ; tale from tip of coccyx, 3.38. Bill, black ; iris, dark (brown?); feet and tarsi, dusky 
bronze. Lower tail coverts extended slightly beyond tail. Collar on the nape, interrupted behind by an isthmus of black, 
which, when the feathers were stroked smooth, was about half an inch in width. The collar was mottled by the occurrence of 
black feathers, and anteriorly was about an inch wide. 
On the 20th of January, 1857, I obtained a brant at Sekwim bay, near Port Townsend, 
Washington Territory, which at once struck me as identical with the B. nigricans of Lawrence, 
and figured by Cassin in his work on the “Birds of California,” &c. ; and upon comparing the 
specimen with the description there given, I was pleased to find that it agreed in all essential 
particulars. The skin was preserved, and is now in the Smithsonian collection; its measure¬ 
ments are those above given. The breast and belly are somewhat lighter than in Cassin’s figure, 
being blackish dusky, with a slight brownish tinge posteriorly. The bird also diflers from the 
common brant in having no white markings on the head. These brant are extremely abundant 
about the Straits of Fuca in winter. 
They appear to prefer the vicinity of the coast, and subsist, by preference, on sedge grass 
growing near salt water. They also spend much time in the water, being more duck-like in 
their habits than other geese. I have seen them frequently alight near the shore in salt water, 
and at other times on bare sand spits, as if in search of small shellfish. The body of this goose 
is scarcely larger than a mallard’s. The specimen skinned was eaten afterwards, and found to 
be tender and juicy, with but little disagreeable fishy flavor. Their cry appears to be a feeble 
imitation of the honking of other geese, mixed with sundry noises resembling those of the 
“old squaws.” I may have been deceived in this, as at the time I observed them with 
reference to their voices they were alarmed and rising, and there were probably some of the 
latter birds in the vicinity. 
In flight this brant is more desultory than other species of geese. I noticed a flock, which 
probably contained five hundred individuals, which, in rising from the water, broke into twenty 
or thirty small companies, all apparently flying at random, and but few taking the wedge-shaped 
order of progression usual to wild geese.—S. 
