6c British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs 



wild aerial laugh or cry, which has a striking resemblance to a human laugh — 

 hah-ha, hah-ha, hah-ha, hah-ha, ha-a-a-a, — hence a local name, " Laughing Goose." 

 In Ireland it is known as the " Tortoise-shell Goose," from the marbled markings 

 on the abdomen. Both the Grey Lag and this species were probably domesticated 

 by the ancient Egyptians, as they are represented, in the act of being fed, on the 

 walls of temples. 



Regarding its range in Great Britain, it is not uncommon in some localities 

 in the autumn and winter in the west of Scotland, notably on Islay (which appears 

 to be its head quarters), and in some other places in the Inner Hebrides, but rare 

 on the outer islands. According to Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley, not an 

 uncommon species in Caithness, but extremely rare in Sutherlandshire, and the 

 commonest of all Geese in Orkney. In Shetland, the late Dr. Saxby says : — "very 

 large flocks have been known to occur, but its visits are few and far between." In 

 Cumberland, Messrs. Macpherson and Duckworth describe it as a casual visitant 

 of irregular occurrence. It is a very numerous species in some parts of Ireland. 



In Europe and Asia it nests in Iceland, Kolguev, Arctic Russia, and Siberia, 

 being confined to the tundras, or the barren districts beyond the forest belt. Rare 

 in Northern Scandinavia, where its place is taken by the smaller species A. erythropus. 

 It was found nesting, by Dr. Bunge, (1886), ten degrees east of the delta of the 

 Lena, on the Great Liakoff island, the most southerly of the New Siberian islands, 

 many breeding there in July (" The Ibis," 88, p. 350). Mr. Seebohm says they 

 nest in the Kanin Peninsula, in northern Russia. Mr. T. H. Pearson found it 

 in July, 1895, in Novaya Zemlya — they were then in full moult. In 1895, 

 Mr. H. L. Popham got old birds and eggs, and a gosling in ' down, from the 

 Yenisei. In winter it is occasionally found in Turkey, and is the most abundant 

 Goose on the Nile. Very common on the southern shores of the Caspian and the 

 lakes of the south-west Caucasus — ("The Ibis," 1883, P- 2>i)- It is a scarce 

 species in Transylvania, Italy, and Spain ; and it is somewhat curious, in connexion 

 with its abundance in some parts of the British Isles, that only two examples 

 have been obtained in Heligoland during the last fifty or sixty years. It is 

 common in Japan in winter, also in some parts of China and Northern - India. 



The American White-fronted Goose has been separated from the European 

 under the name of Anser gambelii, Hartlaub. It is the larger of the two, and 

 the bill measures 2 inches instead of 1-50 as in ^. albifrons. It is perhaps not 

 entitled to specific distinction, and is difficult to say if the summer range of 

 the two races overlap, and to which of the two species the birds which breed in 

 Greenland and Alaska belong. 



Mr. Robert Gray ("Birds of the West of Scotland") quoting from notes 



