The Pink-Footed Bean Goose. 7^ 



Siberia* In Heligoland it lias only been sbot three times in tbe last fifty or 

 sixty years. 



Mr. Howard Saunders (" Yarrell's British Birds," vol. iv, p. 273) says : — " the 

 voice of the Pink-footed Goose differs from that of the Bean Goose in being 

 sharper in tone, and the note is also repeated more rapidly." It is extremely 

 difficult to express the note, or the difference between the calls of birds on paper. 

 I can, however, testify, from experience, that there is a very distinct difference 

 between the call-note of these two species. 



This Goose, I think, in its adult dress, is the most bright coloured of any 

 of its congeners, and the one perhaps most entitled to the term " Grey-Goose." 

 It is a lively, active, cleanly- shaped bird, and has the blue-grey shoulders, and 

 lavender or ash-grey rump of the Grey Lag. The local gunners on the coast 

 constantly confound the two. Mr. Haigh says the average weight of four he 

 shot was about five lbs. 



For centuries the autumn flights of Geese, on the east coast of England, have 

 arrested attention, and have been accepted as an augury of the approach of 

 winter. The Reports of a Committee, in connection with the migration of birds, 

 appointed by the British Association, between 1879 ^^^ 1887, contain numerous 

 notices of the flight of Grey Geese in the autumn. The records, however, of a 

 spring migration to the north, are few and far between, one reason for this, is 

 that, in the spring, migrants going north appear to move by the most direct route, 

 and in the most expeditious manner, as if in the greatest hurry to reach their 

 breeding grounds. Pink-footed Geese leave the Humber district in the latter 

 part of March, and through April. 



The late Colonel Russell, (May 1880), in a letter, infotmed me that he had a 

 communication from a friend living at Havering, about three miles from Romford, 

 on the Essex coast, on the south slope of a steep high hill, who informed him 

 that " the Grey Geese were seen on Saturday, 21st February, flying in a triangular 

 form in a north-east direction. I have repeatedly seen them sometimes passing 

 for whole days, and have always noticed that we never had any winter to speak 

 of afterwards. They generally fly about a mile high. We very seldom saw them 

 going south, I suppose because the days are shorter, or possibly some may go 

 another way, but they generally go north about this time of the year. I used to 

 try and shoot them with a rifle to see what sort of Geese they were." 



The late Mr. Seebohm ("The Ibis," 1879, P- ^5^) describes the rush of Grey 



* In "The Ibis," for 1897, pp. 5-8, Mr. P. Sushkin, of Moscow, describes a new Palsearctic Goose under the 

 name of Anser negledus, from examples obtained by himself on Lake Thoungak, in the government of Ufa, 

 (Rossia orientalis). This he considers a distinct form from both A. segetum and A. brachyrhynchus, but, of the 

 two, more nearly allied to the former in colour. 



