42 BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



origin of the latter scarcely admits of its introduction 

 otherwise than as an acclimatised species. The Egyptian 

 goose, however, being found in Northern Africa, there 

 appears no reason why stragglers should not reach our 

 coast at times, and although it is impossible now to 

 distinguish between such foreign arrivals, and those 

 which, bred in this county and left unpinioned, are 

 killed in their wandering flights, more particularly when 

 frozen out during sharp weather, ifc may still, I think, 

 be retained in the Norfolk list. 



It would be difficult to arrive at the exact date when 

 either Egyptian or Canada geese were first introduced 

 into this country,* though probably, as regards the 

 former, at a remote period, but our local records of its 

 occurrence in a supposed wild state extend no further 

 back than the commencement of the present century, 

 whilst the few notices of the latter are of a much more 

 recent date. 



In Sir William Hooker's M.S. notes a pair of Egyp- 

 tian geese are said to have been killed near Harleston, 

 in December, 1808, and one at Filby, near Yarmouth, in 

 1815. Hunt, in 1815, figured this bird from a speci- 

 men killed some few years before at Kimberley, and 

 states that another was shot in September, 1815, at 

 Ormesby, near Yarmouth. Colonel Hawker mentions 



Lubbock also remarks that lie has known two or three instances 

 in which " there could be no doubt of the specimens being really 

 wild." But even such examples may be only stragglers from 

 Holland, where, I believe, they are kept, as with us, in some 

 numbers. 



* In Willughby's " Ornithology," published in 1678, the Egyp- 

 tian goose is figured under the name of the Gambo goose (Anser 

 gambensis), and in describing the Canada goose (p. 361) the author 

 remarks, " We saw and described both this and the precedent [the 

 Egyptian goose of modern authors] among the King's wild fowl 

 in St. James's Park." 



