506 ANSER FERUS., 
‘entangled in my cape, and as I was anxious to kill the bird before it 
got to the water I fired before I got the gun to my shoulder, and 
unhappily only broke a wing. Down came the bird within twenty 
yards of me, and seemed scarcely inclined to go away. O for another 
barrel! The wind unfortunately was from the shore, blowing from 
the north-west. I watched the poor bird till it was nearly at the 
other side. With my glass I saw it once turn face to wind and 
attempt to rise. I saw distinctly that it was a Grey Lag. IT left the 
eggs till next day, when I took them on my return from Overskaig— 
the bird of course not near them, nor had the Duck returned to hers, 
having no doubt beea scared by my shot. I beat some more very 
likely grounds, especially a peninsula with very long heather, to no 
purpose. I thought the yelk of the Goose’s eggs remarkably sweet. 
They were somewhat stained by the dry grass, of which the nest was 
composed, becoming wet in the absence of the bird, for I do not 
think they were so the first day. Both these nests, the Goose’s and 
the Duck’s, were entirely concealed by the heather, as also the Goose’s 
on Loch Meadie [§ 5397]. Oliver led me to some ponds where he 
said a small dark kind of Goose bred ; but 1 found out in the course 
of the walk that they were Divers and not Bean-Geese. .The herd, 
Thomson, was mentioned to me by Mr. Dunbar, and no doubt it was 
from him that Dunbar got the “ Bean’’-Goose’s eggs he sold me 
[$§ 5396]; but I did not understand from Thomson that he knew of 
two kinds of Geese. He shewed me the nest from which be took the 
eggs last year that he gave to Dunbar. It was a good part of a mile 
from the loch-side in a kind of swampy hollow. 
On the 12th of May Ferguson, Lord Ellesmere’s keeper at Lairg, 
told me that he had just come down the loch in a boat. He and his 
crew were detained a night on the island, about halfway up the loch. 
They had found a Goose’s nest and had eaten the eggs. On the 16th 
I called on him again. He did not know that there were two kinds 
of Geese on Loch Shin—“ if so they must be very like each other.” 
I saw on that day three Geese that I could be certain were Grey 
Lags, and at least four the day before, seven in all on Loch Shin, 
certainly Grey Lags. Two, the first I saw, I took for Bean-Geese. 
My experience thus shews that the Grey Lag does breed on the loch- 
side, and so the eggs he sent me as Bean [§ 5396] are probably Grey 
Lag—that is, I cannot but feel doubt as to whether the Bean-Goose 
really breeds in Sutherlandshire. Still Dunbar believes it and it is 
his authority upon which Mr. St. John rests for the “facts” about 
