SHORT-BILLED GREY GOOSE. 607 



Habits. — As this species has by some been confounded 

 with the Anser segetum, and by others entirely overlooked, 

 very little can be said of its habits or distribution. It has 

 been met with in various parts of England, and not very 

 uncommonly in the south of Scotland, it being frequently 

 seen in the Edinburgh market. The first specimen described 

 above as an adult male was shot about the 20th of November, 

 1840 ; the second was killed in 1835 ; but it is more fre- 

 quently obtained in February and March, as is the case with 

 both the other species. Two specimens in the Montrose 

 Museum were shot in the neighbourhood of that town, and I 

 have seen it in winter in Aberdeen market. 



Mr. John MacGillivray, in his notes on the Zoology of 

 the Outer Hebrides, published in the Annals and Magazine 

 of Natural History, vol. viii., p. 13, has the following very 

 instructive notice respecting this species : — " The Pink-footed 

 or Short-billed Goose breeds in great numbers in the small 

 islands of the Sound of Harris, as well as those of the interior 

 of North Uist. This bird was seen in flocks so late as the 

 beginning of May, was observed in pairs among the islands 

 in the sound about the middle of the month, and had the 

 young fully fledged and strong upon wing about the end of 

 July ; it had again collected into flocks by the beginning of 

 August, for late in the night of the 8th of that month, as 

 I was riding in great haste towards the ferry-boat for Ber- 

 neray, while crossing the sandy margin of a shallow pool, I 

 came suddenly upon a flock of Geese, amounting to several 

 hundreds, judging from their cries, which startled my horse, 

 and, I may add, myself also." 



My friend, Mr. Thomas Jamieson, who has favoured me 

 with a list of birds observed by him in Skye,in 1850, makes the 

 following statement : — " Pink-footed Goose. I shot a Goose 

 in the month of April, out of a party of six that had frequented 

 a locality on Monkstadt for some time. It turned out on 

 examination to belong to this species, and not to be a Bean 

 Goose. On the farm of Monkstadt there was once a shallow 

 lake, now imperfectly drained by open ditches, which used to 

 be frequented during winter by great numbers of Swans, 

 Geese, and Ducks, of various descriptions. Throughout the 



