ANSER FERUS. 507 
the periods of the breeding of the two on Loch Shin. It is possible 
that Dunbar may not have distinguished the two species accurately 
before he got Yarrell [’s work], and Mr. St. John’s experience may 
be more of Shinness in winter, for he once resided there for a time— 
shooting, I believe. All the certain information I have is of Grey 
Lag—as Mr. St. John shooting it on Loch Laighal and on Loch 
Meadie, I on Loch Meadie and Loch Shin. It does not appear that 
the Milners obtained any Bean Goose*; but they shot the Grey Lag 
in the Western Islands. Mr. Selby’s party is the original authority 
for Bean Goose in Sutherlandshire [ Edinb. Nat. Philos. Journal, xx. 
pp. 292, 293]. They saw it on Loch Shin—a single pair. They 
captured a young bird, after a severe chase, on Loch Naver. They 
saw several old birds on Loch Laighal, and at Tongue some goslings 
hatched under a hen, which, they were told, were not in the habit, 
when they grew up, of intermixing or breeding with tame Geese. 
We do not find it mentioned that they procured an old bird, and as 
nothing is said of the Grey Lag Goose being seen, which we know 
breeds at two of these lochs, if not at all three, it is probable that al/ 
they saw were Grey Lag and that they mistook the species. 
§ 5399. Three.—Loch Urigil, Sutherland, 1849. “J. S.” 
19 May, 1849. We dragged the landlord’s boat over [from 
Aultnagealagach] to Loch Urigil—four men. We found no Goose’s 
* The Miiners, I believe, trusted much to the assertion of Ross, the gamekeeper 
at Tongue ; but Ross described the birds to me with grey fronts to the wings, and 
therefore as Grey Lag. Certain it is that all the Geese I saw distinctly were Grey 
Lags. I did not visit the island in Loch Laighal, as the boat required fetching 
from a distance. I saw one Goose at the far end of the loch, which I thought was 
Grey Lag. 
Mr. Henry Milner wrote to me 24 March, 1849 :—“ In reference to the occurrence 
of the Bean-Goose at Loch Laighal [§ 5393], I should much like to have that point 
accurately cleared up. KR. Ross, the keeper at Tongue, from whom we got some of 
the eggs (two we found in an addled state), assured me that the apex of the beak 
was black or horn colour, and those I saw on the lake from their darker shade of 
brown and the bright ash-colour in front of the wing, which is more conspicuous 
in the Bean than in the Grey Lag Goose, owing to its darker body, convinced me 
as to the identity of the species, and the correctness of Ross’s information, Onur 
specimens of the Grey Lag I obtained at Loch Langevat, also about a dozen eggs.” 
This convinces me Mr. H. Milner saw nothing but Grey Lag, since it is the Grey 
Lay that has the conspicuous ash-coloured patch on the wing, and not the Bean- 
Goose as Mr. Milner imagined }. 
