Pink-footed Goose 91 



An examination of the other instances cited with a query has convinced me that not 

 one of them will bear criticism, and therefore I confidently affirm that hitherto there is 

 no record of an authentic case of the occurrence in Russia of the pink-footed goose. Here 

 I cannot refrain from mentioning a communication from Odessa inserted some years ago 

 in the Field, wherein a certain English sportsman stated that he saw somewhere near 

 Odessa many of these geese (pink-footed geese), although he did not get the chance of 

 killing one. 



When I considered it necessary to give a detailed description and figure of this species 

 in my Gust Rossii, I did so in order to give a true idea of the species and to avoid in the 

 future such doubtful identifications. If such slender knowledge of this goose on the part 

 of Russian sportsmen and ornithologists may find some excuse in the comparatively 

 scanty material available, no excuse for their ignorance can be offered by ornithologists 

 living in a country where this goose is one of the most numerous species in winter. 



As an instance of my meaning, the late Mr. Seebohm fell into an error when he 

 wrote in his British Birds 1 that this goose can hardly be regarded otherwise than a local 

 race or island form of the bean-goose {A user segetum) ! 2 Equally astonishing is the opinion 

 expressed by Mr. John Cordeaux in his British Birds, their Nests and Eggs, that this 

 goose does not even deserve to be regarded as a sub-species of the bean-goose. 



Most remarkable, however, is the fact that these two ornithologists should decide a 

 question of so much importance, when they were entirely unaware that, under the name of 

 bean-goose, they were confounding two perfectly distinct species of geese — the harvest 

 or common bean and the yellow-bill ; and this because neither the one nor the other took the 

 trouble to enter more deeply into this question, which would have been easy enough, after 

 Naumann had discussed it so carefully. 



Geographical Distribution 



It appears certain that this goose nests on Spitzbergen, and there is hardly a doubt 

 that it is found also in Franz Josef Land and very probably in Iceland, where, according 

 to the testimony of Mr. Proctor, 3 it has been procured once or twice, the example being in one 

 case a female with an tgg she is supposed to have laid. In Greenland the pink-footed 

 goose has not hitherto been found, neither has it been authentically regarded as breeding 

 anywhere on the European continent. 



The species occurs on passage and winters every year in North-western Europe. 

 While in Scandinavia, North Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France it is merely a casual 

 and rare visitor, it winters regularly every year in large numbers in Great Britain, where 

 at the present day it is the common species among the bean-geese. It is very probable that 

 it sometimes also strays into the interior of the continent of Western Europe, and descends 

 along the Atlantic seaboard, although seldom, to Spain and Portugal ; but all such records 

 demand careful verification. That the geese with rosy bills and feet now and then met 

 with in India in winter, belong not to this species but to Sushkin's goose (M. neglecttts) is, 

 to my mind, an indisputable fact, since I was convinced by Mr. N. A. Zarudny that it 

 was the latter that was found wintering in Persia, a skin from which country I have 

 carefully examined. 



1 John Cordeaux in British Birds, their Nests and Eggs, erroneously cites Seebohm as stating that this is an inland form, instead of 

 island form, as stated by the latter. 



2 Vol. hi. p. 498. 3 Ibis, 1864, P- 132. 



