Plate 105
Havell CCXCVI
Barnacle Goose
(Branta leucopsis)
Audubon had never seen any live specimens of these geese. “Being neither anxious to add to our Fauna,” he wrote in his text, “nor willing unnecessarily to detract from it, I have figured a pair of these birds, with the hope that ere long, the assertions of others… may be abundantly verified by the slaughter of many geese.” Actually the barnacle goose is an Old World species, and Audubon would have been wise to omit it from his publication. Although a few breed in Greenland, this goose almost never visits the North American continent. Audubon apparently drew the bird from mounted specimens in Great Britain between 1834 and 1836. The rendering of the habitat, done with oil paints, suggests the work of his son Victor.
Source: The Original Water-Color Paintings by John James Audubon. Copyright 1966 by American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.
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