BIRDS 241 



Bean or the Pink-footed Geese. The late Sam Watson of Carlisle 

 told me that he stuffed several local specimens during his 

 extended residence in that city. The late Sir W. Jardine 

 obtained specimens on the Scottish side of the Solway which I 

 examined at his sale. On the English side Messrs. Mann shot 

 two beautiful birds out of a gaggle of five which visited the 

 neighbourhood of Allonby in November 1882. They also 

 identified the remains of a single individual, which a farmer in 

 their neighbourhood shot in November 1884. The bird itself 

 was eaten. I never heard of any others until Mr. Nicol shot an 

 adult near Skinburness, January 16, 1889, in quite open weather. 

 It was regarding this bird, the first which he had ever seen, that 

 Mr. Nicol wrote to me : ' The bird I sent you was an old bird ; 

 but it took in with the four Pink-footed Geese that I had seen 

 for some days, and when they were feeding it kept to the outside. 

 Had it not done so, I should most likely not have got it, as it 

 was nearest me when I shot at them, and I missed the other 

 four.' Upon the 6th of January 1890 the same observer w r as 

 standing at his cottage door at Skinburness when he observed a 

 party of nine Grey Geese fly up from the sea. Circling round, 

 they alighted upon a somewhat elevated part of the marsh, 

 which was rapidly being submerged by the flowing tide. Eun- 

 ning to his punt, which lay moored in a neighbouring creek, he 

 put off, and after paddling through some rough water in the 

 teeth of the wind, succeeded in working up to within fifty yards 

 of the birds. He fired, and to his astonishment all the birds 

 stayed. Eight were shot dead, and the ninth was mortally 

 wounded. It was the first shot that he had ever been able to 

 get at Grey Geese of any kind with a punt gun, and only the 

 second time in his life that he had met with the White-fronted 

 Goose, to which his whole bag belonged. They exhibited a 

 beautiful series of all sizes and ages, from the youngest bird 

 which had not a white feather, or the bird in which one or two 

 black feathers were just beginning to show, to the richly varie- 

 gated veterans of the flock. 



Piled together on a cottage table, as I saw them next morning, 

 they made a very striking wild-fowler's ' trophy,' — the orange 

 colour of their feet embellishing the general effect produced by 



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