THE LESSER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 6 3 



Family ANA TID&. 



LESSER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 



Anser eryt/iropus, LINN. 



THIS little Goose is the Anser erythropus originally described by Linnaeus. 

 Much confusion once existed, amongst modern ornithologists, between this 

 and the larger species, Anser albifrons, and it was only in 1860 that Professor 

 Newton, of Cambridge, cleared up the doubts in connection with the nomenclature 

 in a paper, which was reprinted in "The Ibis" of that year. The Lesser White- 

 fronted Goose is the smallest of the five species of Grey Geese found in Europe, 

 and it has in recent years been added to the British list. 



This addition to the British avi-fauna was made by the late Mr. A. C. 

 Chapman, who on September i6th, 1886, shot a young male on Fenham Flats, on 

 the Northumbrian coast. Some years prior to this I saw an example, the size of 

 an Eider Duck, hanging on a game stall, in the market place, at Great Grimsby; 

 shortly returning to ptirchase the bird, I found, to my sorrow, it had been sold and 

 taken away, and, although making every possible enquiry, was never able to trace 

 the purchaser. My friend, Mr. G. H. Caton Haigh, who has given me many notes 

 about the Geese, thinks it has occasionally visited Lincolnshire, as the wild-fowl 

 shooters have told him that, on one or two occasions, they have seen small grey 

 Geese, no larger than Brent. On November I4th, in 1886, one was seen by a 

 correspondent of the " Zoologist," in Leadenhall market, and said to have come 

 from Holland. 



The length of an average Lesser White-fronted Goose is twenty-one and 

 twenty-two inches, as compared with twenty-seven and twenty-eight for Anser 

 albifrons. It is altogether a smaller bird in its measurements, and with 

 the colour brighter and more distinct. The short straight ridged bill forms a 

 line with the forehead, and the comparative length of the wing, which in A. 

 erythropus extends considerably beyond the tail, is perhaps the most ready point 

 of distinguishing the two. 



