RED-BREASTED GOOSE. 283 



(Zool. s.s. p. 3236). lu Scotland, in addition to the Berwick- 

 shire one ah'eady mentioned, a specimen is stated by Mr. 

 K. Gray to have been killed in the county of Caithness, 

 and to be still preserved in the collection formerly belonging 

 to the late Mr. Sinclair of Wick ; and Macgillivray re- 

 ceived information that one had been seen on the loch of 

 Strathbeg, some years prior to 1852. As regards Ireland, 

 Thompson states that he was informed by a person to whom 

 the species was well known, that about the year 1828 he 

 had seen a specimen in the shop of Mr. Glennon, to whom 

 the bird had been sent in a fresh state to be preserved. It 

 may be noted for what it is worth, that in the sale-catalogue 

 of the collection of the late Dr. Martin Barry, one of the lots 

 is a " Ked-breasted Goose, shot at Kilkerrin Bay, Galway, 

 in 1828." 



The Red-breasted Goose is only a rare straggler to Sweden, 

 Denmark, and Northern Germany, but it bas more frequently, 

 at long intervals, been met with in Holland ; the last time 

 so recently as the 18th of February, 1881.* Five or six ex- 

 amples have been obtained in France, and two or three in 

 Italy. In Russia it is said to visit Archangel in spring, and 

 to have occurred near Moscow ; passes through the central 

 provinces in small numbers ; is not uncommon on migra- 

 tion near Astrachan ; and in winter it visits the southern 

 shores of the Caspian, especially the Persian territory, in 

 considerable numbers. Menetries relates, in his ' Catalogue 

 raisonne des objets de zoologie recueillis dans un Voyage 

 au Caucase, &c,' that in 1828 a large flock of this species 

 appeared at Lenkoran, probably driven there by strong winds ; 

 they were so exhausted by fatigue that they were caught by 

 hand, and many were still preserved in captivity, to which 

 they were easily reconciled. They always kept together, and 



* J. H. Gurney, jun., in ' The Ibis,' 1881, p. 495. The bird was shot, when 

 in company with a lot of Ucrnacle Geese, by Messrs. W. H. Monement and 

 G. Cresswell, and tiie description given by tlie former is worth quoting, in order 

 to show how a very rare bird may be obtained by the merest accident : — "We 

 found tlie Geese in a long line and thin, so let them swim on in order to rake 

 them ; but they would not have it, and rose. We stopped twenty-five Bernacle ; 

 got twenty-three and the Red-breasted Goose." 



