608 ANSER BRACHYRHYNCHUS. 



winter a few Geese may still haunt the spot, and a stray Duck 

 or two, hut no Swans. They, on the year it was dried up, 

 are said to have come and hung over the well-known spot, 

 uttering melancholy cries, and then sailed slowly away to 

 seek some as yet undisturbed placid lake, where they might 

 rest their wing unmolested by any drainage speculations ; and 

 it is thought that it would have been as Avell for his Lord- 

 ship's purse to-day if he had turned his cash to some other 

 improvements and let the Swans float still on the bosom of 

 St. Columba's Loch. Geese come to the islands of Ascrib 

 and Fladda in the autumn, before they arrive in Skye, settling 

 in great numbers to feed on the grass of those unfrequented 

 spots. The first Geese I saw in autumn were on the 24th of 

 September, when I saw about half a dozen, but observed no 

 large flock pass until the beginning of October. They breed 

 in Uist, I was informed by those who had seen them there." 



Remarks. — Among the various distinctions between the 

 Bean Goose and the Short-billed, is a very remarkable one 

 derived from the knobs on the roof of the upper mandible ; 

 the former having five series besides the two lateral rows sepa- 

 rated each by a deep groove from the marginal series of 

 lamella? ; whereas the latter has only three series of knobs, 

 besides the two lateral rows of shorter and more flattened 

 knobs, separated each by a very shallow groove from the 

 marginal lamellae. 



In a paper read to the Zoological Society, on the 11th 

 December, 1838, Mr. Bartlett first distinguishes this species as 

 British, giving it the name of Anser phcenicopus, Pink-footed 

 Goose. I think the dimensions which he gives are rather small, 

 for, although I have seen a specimen which measured only 

 twenty-eight inches in length, fifty-four in extent of wing, 

 with the bill an inch and three-fourths along the ridge, yet 

 the average size is larger ; and to give the smallest measure- 

 ment in one case, and the largest in the other, is apt to mis- 

 lead the student. The shorter and much more slender bill of 

 the present species, shorter and proportionally thicker tarsi, 

 and ash-grey instead of dark-brown rump, enable one at once 

 to distinguish it from the Bean Goose. 



