RED- BREASTED GOOSE. 83 



pean birds, and its range elsewhere being little 

 known, its value to collections is very great In 

 our own country it has been more frequently taken 

 or killed than elsewhere ; a fact which would lead 

 us to believe that some far distant and little vi- 

 sited region will afford a breeding station to some 

 troops of this beautiful bird, for its great scarcity in 

 any known locality, renders it difficult to account 

 for the specimens which from time to time have oc- 

 curred in our islands, amounting now, from the 

 statistics so carefully brought together by Mr. Yar- 

 rell, to seven or eight instances. These have prin- 

 cipally been in the south, but one in Mr. Bullock's 

 collection was killed near Berwick on Tweed, which 

 is the most northern British range on record. A 

 few other specimens are mentioned by Temminck 

 and Nilsson, in Scandinavia and northern Europe, 

 but almost nothing is known of its habits. It is 

 said, and the information is handed down from one 

 to another, to breed on the shores of the Frozen 

 Ocean, but we scarcely trace any minute or re- 

 cent authenticity of the fact. The latest account 

 from observation is that of M. Menetries, who, 

 during the Russian expedition on the Caucasus and 

 frontiers of Persia, observed a considerable flock of 

 this species near Leukoran, so exhausted that they 

 were caught by the hand and preserved in captivity. 

 In feeding they preferred vegetables to grain.* 



" Forehead, crown of the head, list down the 

 back of the neck, chin, throat, and band extending. 

 * Quoted from Yarrell, Ui. p, 82^ 



