KED-BREASTED GOOSE 69 



since the first record in October, 1859, when Irby killed a couple 

 and saw another near Sitapur in Oiidh. But it has been got 

 here and there in the north as far east as Lakhimpur. In 1898, 

 four came into the Calcutta Bazaar, and I got them on behalf 

 of the Calcutta Zoo ; three were brought all together on New 

 Year's Day, but they had been sent down from up-country, and 

 had their wings cut. It is worth noting that these birds did not 

 moult at the proper time that year ; two died, and I determined 

 to pull the quills of the others to start the moult and save their 

 lives. This I did, not without difhculty, but the result was they 

 moulted all right, and lived and moulted normally for some time 

 after, not seeming to feel the heat at all, though this species is 

 a high northern bird, breeding close to the unmelting ice. It 

 is common in winter in China, and also visits Japan, but not 

 any part of the New World. It is an Eastern species, and as 

 rare at home as in India. 



Rcd-brcastcd Goose. 



Branta ruficollis. Shak-voy, Siberia, 



A very small black-and-white goose, with a breast nearly as 

 red as a robin's, is such a remarkable bird that it can hardly be 

 overlooked anywhere, and so the fact that it has been recognized 

 in India is not surprising, though the paucity of even visual 

 records, and the absence of any actually obtained specimen, bear 

 eloquent witness to its rarity. 



Like the dwarf goose, it is hardly larger than the Brahminy 

 duck, and has very long wings and a particularly small bill ; its 

 colours also, curiously enough, are practically those of the 

 Brahminy, though very differently distributed. The general 

 hue is black, with white stern and broad white band along the 

 flanks ; as this comes just above the water-line, the bird would 

 not look nearly so dark on the water as ashore or on the wing. 

 The rich reddish-brown of the fore-neck and breast i^; also bordered 

 with white, as is a patch of the same red on the cheek ; before 

 the eye there is a white stripe. 



One would expect the female of so richly coloured a bird to 

 be at least a little duller than her mate ; but this is not the case, 



