2524 The Zoologist — March, 1871. 



indeed, ia tliree of the ponds about here — mine, Cotheleston and Sandhill 

 — these birds bred freely, and the young ones, not being pinioned, used 

 constantly to migrate between the three : some were shot occasionally on 

 their passage, and others went off and were no more heard of ; now they 

 have all disappeared. I have always been more ready, therefore, to attribute 

 the occasional appearance of the Canada goose in this county to such escapes 

 as these rather than to its appearance in a bond fide wild state. I think 

 it not at all improbable that some of the escapes may have bi'ed in places 

 suited to them, and that thus, if remaining unmolested, this bird may 

 eventually establish as good a right to be considered British as the pheasant 

 and some other imported birds. The Egyptian goose (which I own I 

 admitted with some reluctance, knowing of so many escapes) I think stands 

 on different grounds, as large flocks, numbering as many as eighty birds, 

 have been seen at large in England as long ago as 1823 and 1824, before 

 large collections of live water-fowl were as numerous as they are now ; this 

 alone seems to me to give the Egyptian goose a status which the Canada 

 goose does not possess. This difference you seem to recognize, as in the 

 last ' Zoologist List ' you have placed the Egyptian goose in the first part 

 and the Canada in the second part, amongst the birds which you say " have 

 no claim to be called British." — Cecil Smith. 



Graylag Goose and American Goshawk. — In my paper on the " Natural 

 History of Wicklow and Kerry," in the ' Zoologist ' (S. S. 2281), I find I 

 made a mistake in considering the flock of wild geese I mentioned there to 

 be the common bean goose {A. Segetum). I have within the last month had 

 great opportunities of observing them, and succeeded in shooting a good 

 series of specimens. They all turned out to be graylags [A. Jerus), which 

 are generally considered one of the scarcest of the common geese that winter 

 in this country. A flock of these birds visit the Murrough of Wicklow 

 every year, varying in numbers according to the severity of the weather; 

 this year I counted, with a telescope, eighty -six in one flock, and feel sure 

 that on several occasions there were over a hundred, but had no opportunity 

 of counting them : all the people about said they had not seen so many for 

 years. In calm weather they sit all the daytime in one or two large flocks 

 on the sea, generally about three or four hundred yards from the land, and 

 fly in to feed on the low-lying flat bogs and swampy fields soon after dusk, 

 usually scattering in small flocks of fifteen or twenty ; the broad lake at 

 the lower end of the Murrough being a favourite feeding-place. In the 

 morning, before the sun rises, all that happen to be within call generally 

 collect together in one flock, and after great washing, drinking, flapping of 

 wings, &c., get up with loud cackling and fly out to sea, where they sit for 

 the remainder of the day, with the exception of a short flight frequently 

 taken duiing the afternoon, alighting opposite the place where they intend 

 to feed that evening. When there is any wind, and the sea is at all rough, 



