240 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



close together, feeding on the extreme edge of the marsh. He 

 correctly remarks that their call-note is shorter and more fre- 

 quently uttered than that of the Bean Goose, a remark which 

 will be borne out by any one who has a practical knowledge of 

 the notes of the two species. Grey Geese are rarely shot in the 

 interior of Lakeland, which they chiefly cross in their great 

 migratory journeys. Mr. Johnson is disposed, however, to think 

 that this species occurs not unfrequently in the neighbourhood 

 of Brampton ; certainly they appear on our eastern fells occasion- 

 ally. On the 8th of January 1887, Mr. Goodenough, a visitor at 

 Naworth, was out shooting on Townfoot Farm, Brampton, with 

 Brown, the keeper, when they came across a gaggle of sixty-nine 

 geese sitting in the middle of a stubble-field. They concealed 

 themselves behind some oat stacks, and sent some men round to 

 drive the Geese, which rose to a considerable height before reach- 

 ing the stacks. The guns brought down one Goose apiece, birds 

 in fine condition, which turned the scales at 8 lbs. Upon in- 

 vestigation the birds proved to be Pink-footed Geese ; one of 

 them was sent to Duncan of Newcastle for preservation. My 

 present information, received from several gentlemen intimately 

 acquainted with Morecambe Bay, seems to negative the suppo- 

 sition that the Pink-footed Goose is at all abundant in the neigh- 

 bourhood of that estuary, although all my informants have shot 

 Pink-footed Geese on the marshes of the Kibble. Mr. Sharpe 

 kindly tells me that he shot a Pink-footed Goose in Morecambe 

 Bay in January 1891, on the only occasion that he has been 

 able to positively identify the bird in that portion of our faunal 

 area. 



WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 



Anser albifrons (Scop.). 



Richardson includes the White-fronted Goose in his fauna of 

 Ulleswater. Dr. Heysham also states that ' this species is 

 pretty common in the winter;' so that the species has been 

 recognised for a hundred years as visiting Lakeland. It is, 

 however, a very uncommon bird, even in the neighbourhood of 

 the English Solway, nor has it ever been known to make its 

 appearance in numbers at all comparable to those of either the 



