220 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



RALLUS AQUATIC us, Linnaeus. Water-Rail. 



(Page 145.) 



We had a most undoubted and very considerable 

 arrival of migratory Water-Rails in this district in 

 the autumn of 1872, the great majority of these 

 being young birds of the year. I found them at 

 this season during the latter part of October and 

 beginning of November in the most unlikely and 

 unlooked-for localities, even in the small ditches 

 bordering the public roads. The gizzard of a Water- 

 Rail, an old female, killed October 28th, contained 

 fragments of Coleoptera, larvae of Neuroptera, bits of 

 sea-shells, quartz and chalk, part of an earwig, and 

 the head-bones of a small fish. 



ANSER BRACHYRHYNCHUS. Pink-footed Goose. 

 (Page 149.) 



Mr. St. John, in his ' Natural History and Sport 

 in Moray/ p. 79, says : " A few small companies of 

 Pink-footed and White-fronted Geese usually arrive 

 early in the month" (March) ; this is on their way 

 to the northern breeding- stations ; " but about the 

 28th, and generally on some quiet evening, immense 

 flights of the Bean- Goose arrive in Findhorn Bay." 



Mr. Gray (Birds of the West of Scotland, p. 344), 

 on the authority of Mr. Harvie Brown, says the Bean- 

 Goose " is the commonest Goose on the east coast " 

 of Scotland. 



In Yorkshire the Bean-Goose is the rule, the Pink- 



