“MORE ‘ESCAPES.’ 
Rev. H. A. MACPHERSON, M.A., M.B.O.U., Etc., 
Author of ‘ An Introduction to the Study of British Birds,’ etc. 
I HAVE read with pleasure Mr. Waite’s notice of the occurrence of 
the escaped Bernicla magellanica in Yorkshire. It is not, however, 
quite correct to say that these birds are ‘the first recorded examples 
[shot] this side of the Atlantic.’ A few years ago, I think in the 
late autumn of 1887, a pair of these geese were killed by someone 
on Mr. Assheton Smith’s yacht, the Pandora, off the island of Harris. 
I explained in ‘ The Field’ what they were, as soon as I saw them at 
Mackay’s shop, at Inverness; and Mr. Buckley records them also, 
in a footnote to the ‘Fauna of the Outer Hebrides’ (p. 1x). 
out a year ago, I think, the Rev. J. G. Tuck requested me to 
identify a goose killed in Suffolk ; Amser indicus, as it proved to be. 
Early in 1891, an example of Cygnus nigricollis was shot near 
Dumfries. In the winter of 1885-6, when I happened to be living 
for a short time in the North of London, a loafing gunner brought to 
me another C. nigricollis, which he had shot flying over Hampstead 
Heath. All these birds, like the Scottish Upland Geese, were 
full-winged, and Pa no signs of captivity. Similarly, in the 
summer of 1885, I lost an adult Bluethroat Warbler. Its plumage 
was so perfect when it escaped, that had it been shot afterwards, it 
would have been put down no doubt as a voluntary visitor. 
Even reptiles turn up in curious ways. few years ago we 
obtained in Cumberland a large lizard, of a species which had only 
been known hitherto from the interior of South Africa. 
The Moorish Gecko has also turned up here ; just as the Arctic 
Fox has been imported into Scotland, except that the introduction 
of the Vu/pes was intentional in the first instance. I have known 0 
various species escaping from confinement and _ being afterwards 
captured, or shot as supposed rarities. This has often happened, 
for example, to the Budgerigar, and I believe to Serinus cantcollts. 
One of the prettiest sights that I ever witnessed was afforded by 
a pair of Ring-necked Parrakeets (P. forguatus), which I came across 
one day in Kensington Gardens, They were in perfect condition 
and evidently in high enjoyment of their recovered liberty, to judge 
from the graceful antics which they displayed as they climbed about 
the branches of the horse-chestnuts ; these, being in flower, set off 
the verdant plumage of the oriental strangers to the best possible 
advantage. 
August 2nd, 1892. Naturalist, a 
