AXSER INDICUS. 85 



Biirmah and the Shan States during winter, and in summer (Central Asia, 

 due north o£ these countries up to latitude 55° N. 



The most southern record which I can find is that by Jerdon in his 

 ' Birds of India.' He writes : — '" I once saw a couple oi: these geese in 

 the extreme south of India in August, in a small sequestered tank. This 

 pair may have been breeding there, but perhaps they were wounded or 

 sickly birds.''^ It is quite possible that they were breeding, but it is 

 almost certain that one at least of the pair must have been damaged in 

 some way, sufficient to incapacitate it from migrating. They are very 

 devoted to one another, and probably if either of a pair of geese was 

 injured the other would remain with it. On the other hand, they might 

 both have been geese, or both ganders, in which case also, of course, both 

 must have been injured. In Southern India it is nowhere a common bird. 

 Major Mclnroy reported it as common in the Chitaldroog District of 

 Mysore, and Mr. Theobald as not common in Coimbatore. In the south 

 of the Central Provinces it is still far from plentiful. In Bengal it is 

 met with in considerable numbers on all the larger rivers quite down to 

 their mouths. I have seen great flocks of them, both in Jessore and 

 Khulna, in January. It is also found on the rivers running through 

 Behar, Chota - Nagpur, &c., but is not common. In Assam it is 

 comparatively rare, but has been met with in Sylhet, Cachar, and 

 Manipur, and I have also seen it in Kamrup, and it extends all up the 

 Brahmapootra. It is to the west of Bengal, however, that it is found in 

 such vast numbers, and in most parts there outnumbers all the other 

 geese by more than five to one. In Sind, however, the Grey Lag is the 

 more common, and it has not been obtained in Grujarat. 



Speaking broadly, this goose is far more of a river than a lake or tank 

 bird, though it is, of course, also found on the larger lakes and bheels. 

 In Jessore and Khulna we only saw one flock on the Moolna bheel, and 

 that not a large one, but on the rivers we saw several big flocks. Here I 

 tried Hume's plan of floating down on them in boats, but a good many 

 circumstances coml)ined to prevent my having any success. In the first 

 place, the water was almost everywhere too deep to enable a man to wade 

 and push behind the boats; then, also, the fear of "muggers" was much 

 too strongly felt hj the men for them to remain in the water long enough 

 to get near the birds; and, finally, these last were exceedingly wide awake, 

 and would not allow us to get within distance of anything but the longest 

 shots. I did get one i)air, eventually, but it was only by an adaptation of 

 Hume's })lan. The geese, of which there was a flock of about forty, were 



