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 paludosus is no other than the A. 

 segetwm, of authors, and his A. segetum the adult pink- 

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

 segetum, as defined by himself, he writes — 



* Eead before tlie Natural History Section of tlie 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 1868, vol. viii., 

 p. 271. 



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

 to establish, under the name of Anas ijaludosus 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 Tarrell, 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 ?" 

 E 2 



