486 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. - 



marked plumage of A. riificoUis ; but I do not think that he 

 was aware of the existence of such smaller specific differences 

 as the colour of the nail of the bill ; in fact the brown tip 

 which he has given to the bills of his two specimens of 

 A. erythropus seems to prove this. I fancy that he only 

 meant to portray a '^ Grey Goose" without reference to 

 species_, which he probably did not know how to distinguish. 



At all events^ the colours of the bills and shoulders of the 

 two larger Geese absolutely preclude us from identifying 

 them with either the Grey-Lag or the Pink-footed species, 

 so that if they are to be referred to any species in par- 

 ticular, that species must be the Bean [A. segetum), and with 

 this species the larger size of the bills of the two figures in 

 the picture seems to agree. 



They are, however, to my mind, very poor representations 

 of A. segetum, and rather resemble the nondescript kind of 

 Geese which may be seen frequently in farmyards in Egypt. 



My opinion is that either the artist did not know of the 

 characters which distinguish the various species of Grey 

 Goose among themselves (with the exception of the White- 

 fronted species), or else his intention was to depict both 

 wild and tame Geese together — a course of procedure which 

 would, I think, be quite in keeping with the methods of the 

 artists who produced the beautiful series of animal-drawings 

 on the Tomb of Thi, at Sakkarah, which are said to date 

 from about b.c 3500. The latter drawings show conclu- 

 sively, I think, that the Egyptians of those early times 

 had both tame Geese and tame Ducks. 

 Yours &c., 



Gerald E. H. Barrett-Hamilton. 



S.S. ' Victoria,' Indian Ocean. 

 April 27tli, 1897. 



The Collection of Birds' -eggs in the British Museum. — The 

 great collection of birds'-eggs in the British Museum, which 

 was arranged under the direction of Seebohm shortly before 

 his death, contains about 48,000 specimens, and is, no doubt, 

 by far the most extensive collection of these objects in 



