BARRED-HEADED GOOSE. 159 



leaving in March. It is occasionally met with in immense flocks 

 of many hundreds, usually in smaller parties. It grazes on the 

 river banks and fields of corn, chenna, &c, retiring about 10 or 

 11 a. M. to some tank or river, where it reposes during the greater 

 part of the day, returning to the fields in the afternoon. A writer 

 in the Bengal Sporting Magazine states that this Goose is found in 

 immense abundance both in Bundlekund and in the country be- 

 tween Agra and Gwalior ; but that the larger kind (A. cinereus) is 

 not met with in the latter locality. I once saw a couple of these 

 Geese in the extreme south of India in August, in a small se- 

 questered tank. This pair may have been breeding there, but 

 perhaps they were wounded or sickly birds. This Goose probably 

 breeds in the large lakes beyond the Himalayas, where swarms of 

 water-birds have been observed by various travellers in summer, 

 It is excellent eating, but perhaps in this respect inferior to 

 the Grey Goose. 



There are several other wild Geese found in the Northern Hemis- 

 phere, the distinctions between some of which are rather obscure. 

 Among them are A. segetum, the Bean-goose, which, besides being 

 smaller than cinereus, has the nail of the bill black. The Bernacle 

 Geese have the bill smaller than the true Geese, and the lamellas 

 are short and not exposed. The legs are generally black. As pre- 

 viously stated, these are by some placed in a distinct genus, Bemicla, 

 Stephens. The Barnacle Goose, B. leucopsis, is smaller than the 

 wild Goose, and is remarkable for the fable which was believed in by 

 our ancestors, that it took its origin from the shell barnacles (Lepas) ; 

 the same tradition was connected with the Brent Goose, B. brenta. 

 Another Asiatic species is A. rujicollis, Pallas. The Snow Goose, 

 A. hyperboreus, has the teeth very prominent, and has been separat- 

 ed as Chen. It is white with black primaries. A second species of 

 this group is A. ccerulescens, L., formerly considered the young of 

 hyperboreus. It has been killed in Britain. A. cygnoides, L., the 

 Chinese or knobbed Goose, was considered by Cuvier to belong to 

 the Swans, but is strictly a Goose with only 16 cervical vertebras.* 

 It is domesticated in China, and breeds very readily with the 



* Quite recently a Sportsman told me that he had shot a large brown-necked 

 Goose in the interior of the Himalayas. Could it have been this species ? or A. 

 ruficollis? 



