EGYPTIAN GOOSE. 301 



admit this species as a genuine visitor to our islands, the 

 Author appears to have been influenced by a questionable 

 statement by Colonel Hawker, and by the erroneous asser- 

 tions of Temminck. The former has been cited as mention- 

 ing "two killed in Norfolk, and three at Long-parish in 

 Hampshire, in the winter of 1823 ; and the next year again, 

 during some tremendous gales from the west, a flock of about 

 eighty appeared near the same place, when two more were 

 killed." Hawker, however, really gives the numeral eighty 

 with a (/), on the gossip of some of his wild-fowlers, add- 

 ing that he has no doubt the birds were importations, and 

 considering that eight is the usual number of an unpinioned 

 brood which generally takes wing simultaneously, it is more 

 than probable that there may have been some misunderstand- 

 ing. On the Continent there is not one single occurrence in 

 Western Europe which is free from more than suspicion of 

 very recent escape; Temminck' s statement that this species 

 has been killed on the Danube, in Turkey, and in Sicily, 

 is absolutely unconfirmed ; and the assertions of Von der 

 Miihle and Lindermayer that it visits Greece, have not 

 induced Mr. Dresser to include it in his ' Birds of Europe.' 



Besides various instances of single specimens of the 

 Egyptian Goose having been obtained in this country, a 

 flock of five were seen on the Fern Islands in April 1830. 

 A small flock visited the Tweed in February 1832. Three 

 were shot at Campsie, near Glasgow, in November 1832. 

 Mr. Wallace, of Douglas, sent the Author word that a flock 

 of nine were seen in the Isle of Man, in September 1838. 

 Four were shot on the Severn, near Bridgewater, in 

 February 1840 ; two were shot in Dorsetshire in 1836 ; 

 and Colonel Hawker's record has already been mentioned. 

 Other examples have been killed in Kent, Sussex, Dorset- 

 shire, Hampshire, Somersetshire (where numbers have been 

 kept, and allowed to fly at Sandhill, Cothelston, and 

 Lydeard, near Taunton), Devonshire, Cornwall, Norfolk, 

 Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, &c. ; 

 also in Ireland, on the Boyne. 



In a wild state, this species is found along the Nile valley 



