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Barnacle Goose. A summer visitant of the northern seas, in size rather smaller than the common wild goose, and having the forehead and cheeks white, the upper body, bill, and neck black. A fable asserts that the crustaceans called barnacles changed into geese, and various theories have been framed to account for its origin. Max Muller supposes the geese were originally called Hiberniculae or Irish geese, and that barnacle is a corruption of this; but the resemblance of a barnacle to a goose hanging by the head may account for it. The Brent goose is also sometimes called the Barnacle goose, but the two should be discriminated.

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