PINK-FOOTED GOOSE. 417 



districts on our Eastern seaboard, were believed to be Bean 

 Geese {Anser segetum) the species last described, and were 

 stated to be so in all works on ornithology. Such being the 

 case, it may perhaps not be uninteresting to give a short 

 resume of the past and present status of the species in the 

 county. 



On the 8th January 1839 the late Mr. Bartlett exhibited 

 several specimens of Wild Geese at the evening meeting of 

 the Zoological Society, which he believed to be new to British 

 ornithology, and which he proposed to call the " Pink-footed 

 Goose " from the colour of its legs and feet. He pointed out 

 the characteristics of the species and where it differed from 

 other members of the genus, and remarked that, although 

 resembling the Bean Goose much in appearance, in the 

 formation of its sternum it was more like the White-fronted 

 Goose. 



But although the Pink-footed Goose had been clearly es- 

 tablished as a British bird, and specimens had from time to 

 time been procured in various parts of the county, it seems 

 never to have been suspected that the large flocks of Wild 

 Geese frequenting Yorkshire were otherwise than Bean Geese. 



Thomas Allis, in 1844, reported : — 



Anser phcenicopus. — Pink-footed Goose — Occurs at Thorne Moor 

 and York in winter. H. Reid has obtained three specimens in Don- 

 caster Market in 1840. A. Strickland says " From information from 

 a sporting friend I have reason to believe that the bird has been killed 

 out of a flock of the Bean Goose, but I never met with it myself." 



Then we find, twenty years after Mr. Bartlett's observa- 

 tions, a great authority on Yorkshire birds — the late Arthur 

 Strickland of Bridlington, the friend and correspondent of 

 Thomas Allis — reading a paper on British Wild Geese before 

 the members of the British Association, strongly advocating 

 the opinion that the Yorkshire Wild Geese were Bean Geese. 

 Strickland's report is as follows : — 



" Atias ferns or anser, never was a migratory species in 

 this country, but permanently resided and bred in the Carrs 

 of Yorkshire, and probably in the fens of Lincolnshire ; but 

 it has long since been banished from these places, but still 



