

20 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



There is something peculiar as well as interesting in 

 the fact of the grey-lag occasionally throwing out black 

 feathers on the breast after the manner of the white- 

 fronted, and the three other grey geese of Great Britain 

 exhibiting, more or less, white frontal feathers like Anser 

 albifrons ; but, as Mr. Newton remarks, with reference 

 to the latter variation, " it is a question which remains 

 to be answered, whether this results from age, sex, or 

 occasional variety." In the above instance, unquestion- 

 ably, the greyest and therefore the oldest pink-footed 

 goose in my collection of skins has the most white on 

 the forehead. 



Judging from the grey geese I have lately examined 

 in all stages of plumage, it would seem that the white- 

 fronted and bean geese never become so grey on the 

 back and wings as the grey lag and the pink- footed, but 

 in the latter, as shown by adult specimens, the extent 

 of grey on the wings as well as on the lower part 

 of the back resembles very closely the same portions 

 of plumage in the grey lag.* In the young birds 

 the brown feathers on the back and wings are rather 

 broadly edged with a lighter shade of the same colour, but 

 these edgings apparently become narrower and almost 

 pure white by age, whilst in the body of the feather the 

 grey gradually absorbs the brown by a change of colour 

 in the feather itself, and not by a general moult. 



That this species has a high northern range during 

 the breeding season, is shown from the fact that Mr. A. 

 Newton includes it in his list of the birds of Spitz- 

 bergen,f whence he procured both eggs and nestlings 

 in the summer of 1864. 



* Macgillivray says of the pink-footed goose (vol. iv., p. 602), 

 " If the name ' grey goose' could with propriety be claimed by any 

 one of our three grey geese, it is this species to which it ought to 

 be given, it having more grey on the upper parts than even the 

 thick-billed [grey-lag] goose." 



f See "Ibis," 1865, pp. 209-10 and 513. 



