66 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



this was the Bean Goose which, in those days, frequented the low lying districts 

 of Yorkshire, at a time, too, when probably the Pink-footed Goose (as I shall 

 endeavour to shew in the next chapter) was the common wild Goose of the district. 



Mr. Abel Chapman, in his excellent book ("Bird-life of the Borders"), says 

 considerable doubt still continues as to the proper identity of the species of Grey 

 Geese, which, in the autumn, frequent the coast of Northumberland, arising from 

 the " inaccessible nature of their chosen haunts, and the resulting impossibility of 

 obtaining a sufficient number of specimens at different periods" * * so that "a 

 thousand Geese may spend a month or two on the coast, and depart without losing 

 a single member of their mess." 



The Rev. H. A. Macpherson (Zool., 1894, p. 114) thinks: "In former days 

 the Bean Goose was the most common Grey Goose in the Solway Firth of late 

 years, it has, in my experience, been replaced to some extent by Ans,cr brac/iyr/iyiichus." 

 Again in a letter to " The Field " newspaper, (24-vi, 93), the same author writes 

 " there can be no doubt that the Pink-footed Goose is ousting the Bean Goose 

 in many districts. Until a few years ago, most of the Grey Geese shot in the 

 neighbourhood of the English Solway were Bean Geese ; latterly the Pink-footed 

 Goose has been the more abundant of the two with us." He goes on to say " the 

 late Mr. Robert Gray told me, some few years before his death, that he had 

 himself witnessed the fact of the Pink-footed Goose replacing the Beau Goose in 

 the neighbourhood of the Forth." 



A similar uncertainty in the identification of the two species is continued 

 beyond the north-east border. Mr. Muirhead (" The Birds of Berwickshire," vol. 

 ii, p. 66) says : " Immense flocks of wild Geese frequent Berwickshire during the 

 autumn and spring months, consisting of the Bean Goose and its Pink-footed 

 congener, and as the relative number of the two kinds is a matter of conjecture, 

 owing to the similarity of their plumage whilst their habits are alike it has 

 been considered advisable to include them both in one chapter." 



Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown informs ine (in litt., 18, iii, 96) that the commonest 

 Grey Goose, in the Lowlands of Scotland, is without doubt the Pink-footed, and 

 that the Bean Goose is rare. 



In Lancashire the Pink-footed species is the commoner of the two, but in 

 Cornwall, the late Mr. Rodd has stated that nine-tenths of the flocks of wild 

 Geese which visit the south-west of England, in hard weather, are Bean Geese. 

 (" Yarrell's British Birds," iv ed., vol. iv, p. 266). In winter it is found on both 

 sides of the Straits of Gibraltar, and is common in Sardinia also at that season. I 

 mention these facts to shew that there is still very great uncertainty as to the present 

 status of the Bean Goose in Great Britain, and that much remains to be cleared up. 



