62 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



Grey or Grey-lag Goose. 



Anser ferus.^ Sona hans, Hindustani. 



Everyone who has seen a grey domestic goose at home 

 knows what this bird is hke ; only the wild race is smaller, its 

 form is slighter and more elegant, and the beak and feet, 

 generally orange in tame geese, are pink or flesh-coloured. In 

 spring the bill becomes very rich in tint in Indian specimens, 

 a bright rose or light carnation red. 



Old birds are heavily marked with black on the belly, and 

 these should be avoided when selecting geese from one's bag 

 for one's own consumption, according to Hume's sage advice, 

 as apt to be tough and hard. Such birds may weigh as much 

 as eight and a half pounds. ,0n the wing this goose can be 

 discriminated from all the other dark-grey or brown species 

 by the pale French-grey tint of the inner half of the wing, 

 which shows up very conspicuously in flight, appearing nearly 

 white. The gaggling note is like that of the tame goose at 

 home, but not so shrill and high as that of Indian tame geese, 

 which are of the Chinese species {Cygnopsis cygnoides) so well 

 known as ornamental birds in our parks. This black-billed 

 brown goose is found wild in Eastern Asia, and may hereafter 

 be found to occur m the east of our Empire in that condition. 



The grey goose is the only common goose in India besides 

 the bar-headed, and, like that bird, is only a winter visitor ; all 

 along the northern Indian and Burmese provinces it is common, 

 but its numbers bear no comparison to those of the bar-head 

 except in Sind ; in Gujarat, however, it is the only kind found. 

 Like the bar-head, it visits Kashmir and parts of the Himalayas 

 at a moderate altitude. Its southern limit for the most part 

 is that of the Gangetic plain. 



It is, if anything, more gregarious than the bar-headed goose, 

 flocks of upwards of a thousand being seen on the west, where it 

 is most abundant ; these flocks in flight observe the usual V 

 formation and travel with a rapid but stately flight. They get 

 under way slowly, and Mr. E. C. S. Baker advises that when 



cinereus on plate. 



