BEAN GOOSE. 27 



very recently, to come to any conclusion as to the points 

 of specific difference raised by Mr. Arthur Strickland in 

 his well known paper on " the British Wild Geese, "^ in 

 which he maintains that the so-called pink-footed goose 

 is no more than the young bird of the true bean goose 

 (A. segetum), and consequently that both M. Baillon and 

 Mr. Bartlett were wrong in making it a distinct species. 

 During the late severe winter (1870-71), however, thanks 

 to Mr. Hamond, Mr. Upcher, and other friends, I have 

 had the means of forming an opinion from an examina- 

 tion and comparison of specimens in the flesh, and feel 

 convinced that, whatever the Yorkshire carr-lagf as 

 distinguished from the grey-lag may have been, Mr. 

 Strickland's Anser jpaludosus is no other than the A. 

 segetum of authors, and his A. segetum the adnlt pink- 

 footed goose, as proved by his own descriptions. Of A. 

 segetum, as defined by himself, he writes — 



* Read before the ^Natural History Section of the British 

 Association at Leeds, September 24th, 1858, and subsequently 

 published in "The Annals and Magazine of Natural History," 

 ser. 3, vol. iii., p. 121 ; and in " The Naturalist " for 1858, vol. viii., 

 p. 271. 



f Mr. Strickland, in the above mentioned paper, endeavours 

 to establish, under the name of Anas paludosus or long-billed 

 goose, a species distinct from the common bean goose, and as he 

 supposes identical with a bird which is said to have been known, 

 up to the close of the last century, to Yorkshire fowlers and 

 decoymen as the carr-lag to distinguish it from the grey-lag, in 

 company with which [but not interbreeding] it then bred in the 

 carrs, though both have ceased to do so now, and the former has 

 become " almost a lost species." This long-billed goose he con- 

 siders has been " figured and described by Yarrell, Gould, and 

 Morris, under the name of segetum or bean goose." In the " Ibis " 

 for 1859 (p. 199), the editor, in a note on Mr. Strickland's paper, 

 though not inclined to believe that his Anser paludosus " has 

 remained so long unnamed," asks, "Is it Naumann's Anser 

 arvensis, as distinguished from A. segetum in ' Naumannia ' (iii., 

 p. 5, pi. 4) or is it the true A. segetum r' 

 E 2 



