74 INDIAX DUCKS. 



This little goose is found over the greater pari of Northern Euro})e, to 

 the west as far as Great Britain (but only on rare occasions), in Lapland 

 eastwards, Siberia, and Northern China. In the cold weather it is found 

 in Western Europe, Turkey, Asia Minor, North Egypt, Persia, Afghanistan, 

 Northern India, China, and Japan. 



In India it has been but rarely recorded, and I can find few notes of 

 its occurrence since the publication of " Ganie-Birds.' Blanford, in ' Eastern 

 Persia,' ii, p. 303, records Anser eri/throjnis from Persia, and in a footnote 

 he says : — 



" One goose at least is very common in Persia. Many cou|)le remain to 

 breed in the reeds round the lake Daslitiarjan and the marshes near Shiraz, 

 whence ooslinos are often broug-ht into the town. I have never seen them 

 in mature plumage^ nor been able to shoot an old bird, so cannot say to 

 what species they belong." 



I was told by a correspondent in Cashmere that he had shot four geese 

 there in 1901 which were of this species. Mr. H. E. James, in the 

 lecture, })art of which was given in No. 2, vol. viii, Bombay N. H. S. 

 Journal, says : "A friend, of Sukkur, last year shot the very rare Anser 

 enjtliropus, the White-fronted Goose, and ate it." I conclude that Anser 

 erythropus is correctly given, and that it is only the trivial name which is 

 not the one by which we generally know the Dwarf Goose. 



I am afraid a very large number of birds which should be skinned and 

 preserved are plucked and eaten. Only two years ago a friend of mine, 

 who knew how very keen I was on ornithology, informed me with great 

 glee that he had been having a feed on some " Hill Ptarmigan." He 

 described a bird of that family most minutely, and I thought he must have 

 got hold of something really good, and offered fabulous |>rices to any Naga 

 who would produce some of these birds for my inspection. Of course they 

 never came, but eventually my friend, seeing me handling some Imperial 

 Pigeons, suddenly exclaimed : "Why, there are the Hill Ptarmigan!" I 

 regret to say that his description, as given me, contained only two points 

 which referred to the pigeon, i. e. their colour and their feathered toes, the 

 rest was the result of a fertile imagination, a desire to please, and the 

 knowledge, he being a good sportsman, of what a Hill Ptarmigan should 

 look like. 



The same man ate with relish some fine s}>ecimens of the Naga Hills 

 Partridge (^Arhoricola riifot/ulcms), and left me the wings and a few feathers 

 to weep over. However, partridges and ptarmigan are not geese, and I 

 must strav no further. 



