THIS is the wild goose, and the bird to whose English name Anser ferus is often affixed, although this term applies to an entirely different species;-to the true grey lag. The bean goose remains during the winter in suitable localities throughout the island. About Belfast, with its highly cultivated neighbourhood, little is known of it, except as a passing visitant. On the 12th of March, 1846, a flock of ten (their species ascertained by means of a telescope) was seen by an ornithological friend on the north-west side of Devis mountain, behind the town. They were sprung several times, at the height of from 800 to 1,000 feet, and an unsuccessful shot was fired at them; but instead of leaving the mountain, they merely alighted again at an elevated marshy part of it. They were said to have frequented the place during the winter. At the bog-meadows, within two miles of Belfast, flocks of bean geese occasionally alight, and remain for some days; but persecution soon drives them away. A couple, shot there from a flock of twelve birds, so late as the 18th of March (1841), were brought to me. A relative noted (Dec. 2, 1832) that he saw, through his telescope, a flock of fifteen wild geese feeding in the bog-meadows, apparently on grass. During an hour that he and a companion observed them, they all continued feeding but one, which, acting as sentinel, would look around for a little time, and, if no cause for alarm appeared, would begin to feed. Another bird then played a similar part, so that one of the flock always kept on the watch. At the King's Moss, a few miles distant from the town just named, a flock of six bean geese was met with by snipe-shooters, on the 4th of Dec., 1849, and one of them killed with snipe-shot from a distance of about twenty yards. This bird had more white round the base of the bill than I had before seen in the Its stomach was wholly filled with stems and bean goose. leaves of the shamrock trefoil. Wild geese, probably of this species, sometimes appear on wing near Belfast early in the autumn. On the 20th August, 1836, I observed six, perhaps one family, fly over Wolf-hill, apparently on migration. On the 22nd of August, 1849, a fine day, (the weather mild for some time past,) I saw a flock of thirty wild geese fly low and in silence over the road near Holywood House entrance. They were proceeding in a south-east course. Though I observed them on wing for nearly a mile, I did not hear a call. Early in the last week of September, 1838, a small flock was seen over Ballymacarret, flying low, and proceeding in a southerly direction. On September 15, 1840, the first wild geese of the season-a flock of thirty-were noticed; and on the 30th of that month about a hundred appeared. On the 12th September, 1841, five were remarked flying south-westerly, and in the middle of November two or three flocks were similarly observed. On the 8th of September, 1843, I saw, near Templepatrick, a flock of twenty-five wild geese, flying in a south-east course. The day was very fine and warm, such as the weather had been for the preceding ten days. In 1845, a flock of sixteen birds was observed, on the 12th of September, flying over Belfast Bay; and during the following six weeks great numbers appeared; many flocks occasionally on one day. Some of them alighted, though very seldom, to rest on Ballymacarret bank at low water, but they never remained so long as an hour. Throughout every month until January inclusive, and when there is no severe weather here, wild geese are occasionally seen passing in a southerly direction : in the last week but one of December, 1837, several flocks, each of about twenty birds, appeared over the bay, the weather during the week being extremely wet. The wedge-shaped form in which wild geese fly has often been commented on; but I have generally seen them fly in "strings," or single lines. Many species of grallatorial, as well as natatorial birds, occasionally fly in wedge-shaped flocks, one side of which is, however, usually longer than the other. The birds seen early, flying southwards, have been rarely known to alight in the neighbourhood of Belfast Bay or Strangford Lough, as those coming later occasionally do. This is an illustration of what has always seemed to me the general law with regard to birds breeding in high latitudes and moving southward for the winter, namely, that those which appear earliest proceed farthest to the south; and those which arrive latest, if belonging to species that remain at all, are the individuals which continue with us during the winter. From November until March the bean goose, of all ages, is occasionally brought to Belfast market. On the 12th of February, 1838, the finest specimen that I had seen came under my inspection at a bird-preserver's. Its weight was 8 lbs. 10 oz. The measurements, taken before it was skinned, were:-Entire length, 33 inches; wing, from carpus to end of quills, 19 in.: tarsus, 3 in.; bill, from centre of forehead to point, 2 in. 5 lines; from rictus to point, 24 inches. Upper part of nail of the bill white; a I central stripe, of the same colour, on the nail of the lower mandible; on part of the nails of the middle toes a whitish tinge; nails of outer and inner toes of both feet white and pale horn-colour; bill and toe-nails otherwise coloured as usual.* Plumage at base of forehead, for an inch in length, and a quarter of an inch in breadth, white, a little of which colour also appears on each side, from the middle portion of the upper mandible: this white at the base and sides of the bill, according to Temminck, marks the young birds. Wings pass the tail about half an inch. Mr. Jenyns observes (p. 223), that when the nail of the bill is white, &c., it is extremely difficult to distinguish A. segetum from A. ferus; but his own good description, notwithstanding, instantly proved this to be the former species, by the colour of the bill generally, orange legs, and wings passing the tail. With respect to the bean geese, of which the bills are figured by Sir Wm. Jardine (Brit. Birds, vol. iv. p. 66), all the birds which have come under my examination in Belfast and Dublin agreed, in the form and size of bill, with his No. 2, as in plumage, four of the specimens looked to critically, also did, except in the trivial difference that the greater coverts of the wing were greyish-brown of a more uniform tint throughout, than the other feathers of the upper surface of the wing. * I have observed that the ordinary colour of the nail at the extremity of the bill, and of the toe-nails, of A. segetum, is black, while that of A. albifrons is white; but these colours are not always constant to either species. Of this fact Montagu shows us that he was aware at the time of writing the Appendix to his Supplement of the Ornithological Dictionary. Wild geese are not seen about Belfast flying northward towards their breeding haunts in spring, as they are southward, in autumn and winter, toward their quarters for the latter season. Their line of flight, like that of most other migratory birds appearing in the north of Ireland, is quite different according as they proceed north or south. The bean goose frequents annually, in winter, the bogs about Dromedaragh and Clough, county of Antrim, from ten to twenty birds usually keeping together in flocks. Their appearing much on wing is considered to foretell an approaching storm long before it is denoted by any other means. Over the wilder and more humid parts of the northern counties generally, the species is found during winter. From an old man, one of the aborigines of the wild mountainous district of Monterlony, county of Tyrone, I have heard of various sporting and poaching exploits of the peasantry there, one of which was the practice of going out to the bogs in foggy, or, still better, snowy winter nights, to catch wild geese. The parties carried with them blazing torches of bog-fir, and the geese, attracted by the light, flew directly to it and were captured. A few years previous to 1842 (when the fact was communicated to me), a flock of from two to three dozen wild geese, believed to be of this species, on a snowy winter evening, about seven o'clock, flew towards a gas-lamp in Cecil-street, Limerick, around which a few of them were knocked down and captured.* In foggy nights I have heard godwits and other grallatorial birds flying through the glare of gas-light above Belfast for hours, apparently not knowing whither to go, and uttering their loudest cries all the time. It is well known that migratory and other birds often fly towards the lanterns of lighthouses, and are killed by striking against them. A newspaper paragraph, headed, Birds taken at a lighthouse in hazy weather, informs us that-" It is very common for birds to flock about sea-lights at night, in certain states of the weather; but we have not met with an occurrence to the same extent as the following:-The Pentland Skerries lighthouse (Orkney * Mr. R. Davis, jun. Island) return for October states, that on the night of the 11th they had light airs of wind with hazy weather, when nine dozen of larks, snipes, and woodcocks were caught fluttering about the lantern; and had more assistance been at hand, double that number might have been secured."* The following note of the species of birds which had been killed at various times by flying against the lighthouse on Tory Island (off the northern coast of Donegal) and preserved by Mrs. Bailey there, was kindly communicated by Mr. G. C. Hyndman, who saw the specimens in August 1845:-Fieldfare, redwing, house-marten (killed in Dec. 1844), dunlin? ringed plover, oyster-catcher, woodcock, landrail, wigeon, puffin, and stormy petrel. The wigeon struck the copper dome above the light with such force that the sound was mistaken for that of a cannon, as a signal of distress, and the lighthouse-keeper actually sallied out to ascertain the state of the case. The wigeon, of course, was killed. Tennyson, in his last poem, "The Princess," describes the heroine, on one occasion, as "Fixt like a beacon-tower, above the waves Of tempest, when the crimson rolling eye A friend, when woodcock-shooting for two days in December, 1819, at Mountainstown demesne, near Navan, county Meath, saw wild gecse, in flocks of from ten to twenty, during the time; occasionally they came very near, though keeping out of range of gun-shot the firing at the woodcocks roused these geese from the neighbouring bogs, which they frequent throughout the winter. : Mr. G. Jackson (gamekeeper) informs me that "WILD GEESE are very plentiful in all the counties of Connaught, where they generally appear at the full of the moon after the middle of October, and leave at the full of the moon in April. When departing they generally take their flight in the after part of the day, and bend their course towards the nearest point of sea-coast, * Belfast Comm. Chronicle, Dec. 16, 1839. |