BRENT GOOSE, or BRENT BARNACLE. This bird has been already noticed under BARNACLE (q.v.). We add here a few sentences from col. Hawker's Instructions to Young Sportsmen„ which we borrow from Yarrell's British Birds. They refer to wild fowl shooting on the coasts of Dorsetshire and Hampshire. "Towards Nov. or Dec., we have the Brent geese, which are always wild, unless in very hard weather. In calm weather, these geese have the cunning, in general, to leave the mud as soon as the tide flows high enough to bear an enemy; and then they go off to sea, and feed on the drifting weeds. To kill Brent geese by day, get out of sight in a small punt, at low water, and keep as near as possible to the edge of the sea. You will then hear them • coming like a pack of hounds in full cry, and they will repeatedly pass within fair shot, provided you are well concealed, and the weather is windy to make them fly low. Before you fire at them, spring suddenly up, and these awkward birds will be in such a fright as to hover together and present a mark like a barn-door."—The extensive muddy
and sandy flats between Holy island and the coast of Northumberland are a great whiter resort of this species. It is also particularly abundant on muddy and sandy flats in Cromarty bay. The markets, both of London and Edinburgh, are well supplied with it during winter. The B. G. is known in some parts of England as the black goose; it is considered the most delicate for table Of all its tribe, and is perhaps as much sought after as any. The B. G. differs in its habits from the common gray lag and several other species, inasmuch as it never feeds on fresh-water herbage, its tastes being exclusively salinous. B. G. may be distinguished, when on the wing, by their black bodies and white tails. Folkhard, in his excellent work, The Wild Fowler, gives much interesting information regarding this bird.