PINK-FOOTED GOOSE. 15 



bourhood have been very kindly supplied me by Lord 

 Leicester for use in this work. 



"As long as I can recollect wild geese frequented 

 the Holkham and Burnham Marshes. Their time of 

 appearing in this district is generally the last week of 

 October, and their departure the end of March, varying 

 a little according to the season. Till November they 

 rarely alight in the marshes or elsewhere in the neigh- 

 bourhood, but are seen passing to and from the sea. 

 Where they feed in October I know not, as I have 

 reason to believe that they do not obtain much food 

 off the muds like the brents, but live much on grass and 

 new sown wheat. From early in November till their 

 time of departure for the north, the Holkham marshes 

 have almost daily some hundreds of geese feeding on 

 them. There are periods of a week or a fortnight when 

 the greater portion of them go elsewhere, but rarely all 

 go. When on the marshes they are mostly in one or two 

 flocks, but in stormy weather, or even on certain still 

 days, for some unaccountable reason they break up into 

 small lots. My keepers informed me that one day last 

 week [about the middle of November, 1870], which was 

 perfectly calm and still, they were flying about in small 

 lots very low, and that a great many might have been 

 killed." 



Referring also to the goose shot by himself in 1841,* 

 and identified by Yarrell as the pink-footed, his lordship 

 adds, " Of the many geese killed here before then, I have 

 reason to believe from their habits they were nearly all 

 the same as those now here that they were the pink- 

 footed ; and of the many hundreds killed since, with the 

 exception, I believe, of only one bean goose and a few 

 white-fronted, they were all pink-footed. The greatest 

 number obtained in one year was in the severe winter of 



* See " Game Birds and Wild Fowl " by A. E. Knox, MA., 

 P.L.S., p. 101. 



