146 Order VIII 



can hiss like a tame goose. It feeds by day, on grass 

 and other green herbage, as well as on grain among the 

 stubbles; from late summer onwards it resorts to the 

 sea in the evening. The nest of coarse materials, 

 gradually lined with down by the sitting female, con- 

 tains about five rough-shelled yellowish white eggs, 

 and is built among either grass or heather when the 

 locality permits ; at times it is on almost bare soil. 

 This Goose is grey -brown with white belly, the legs and 

 bill being flesh-coloured with a white " nail " at the 

 tip of the latter. 



Our other three Grey Geese differ not at all in habits, 

 but have a different distribution. The White-fronted 

 Goose (A. albifrons), which has also a white nail on the 

 bill, but a conspicuous white band on the forehead, 

 black bars on the breast, and orange-yellow bill and feet, 

 breeds within the Arctic Circle in most of Europe and 

 Asia, in Greenland and in Iceland; it is accompanied 

 eastwards from Scandinavia by the smaller and darker 

 species or race called the Lesser White-fronted Goose, 

 and in Arctic America by the larger Gambel's Goose. 

 On migration it is more common on our west coasts 

 than our east, while the Scandinavian form rarely 

 visits us. The Bean Goose (A.fabalis) and the Pink- 

 footed Goose (^4. brachyrhynchus) have a black nail on 

 the bill, which has also a black base : in the former 

 bird the central portion of it and the feet are orange, in 

 the latter pink. The colours, however, vary a little with 

 age. Neither species has a white forehead or a barred 

 breast. The Pink-footed Goose is much the commoner 

 on our eastern coasts, breeds in Iceland, Spitsbergen, 

 and probably Franz Josef Land ; the Bean Goose from 

 northern Scandinavia, or perhaps only Russia, through 



