THE DWARF GOOSE. 
0 
Anser erythropus, Zinné. 
0 
Vernacular Names.—[ ? | 
o 
Gs) HIS species is so rare a straggler to India, that I have 
. never myself seen a living wild specimen.* 
Colonel Irby tells us that, on the 24th of October 
1859, he killed two and saw a third Dwarf Goose 
near Seetapore, in Oudh. Mr. A. Anderson obtained 
specimens near Hurdui (Oudh) and Futtehpur (North- 
West Provinces). Dr. Bonavia gave me a specimen 
procured near Lucknow. Mr. Chill sent me three specimens 
shot by him on the 3rd, 12th, and 29th March 1879, near Sul- 
tanpore, some 30 miles south of Delhi. We have no other 
record of its occurrence within our limits. 
In Europe it is recorded from the more northern and cen- 
tral portions of that continent, extending into Turkey, Greece, 
the Caspian, Siberia up to its northernmost point, Mongolia, 
China, and Japan. It has never yet been observed in the 
British Isles. I do not find it recorded from Northern Africa, 
but towards the north-east it does occur, as Heuglin says, that 
there is no doubt that it occasionally strays into Lower Egypt. 
Mr. J. H. Gurney, junior, exhibited a specimen killed at 
Damietta at a meeting of the Zoo, (2nd May 1876), and 
Dresser mentions a specimen shot by Mr. Cavendish Taylor in 
Upper Egypt. It has not been recorded from any part of 
Turkestan. 
There is no doubt that the distribution of this species is 
very imperfectly known at present, it having for long been 
confounded with albifrons, to which it bears a strong resem- 
blance, and of which it is almost a perfect minature, but from 
which it is distinguishable at a glance, by its smaller size, its 
tiny bill, its darker general tone of plumage and much darker 
brown rump, and also, in adults, by the much greater distance 
* Dresser quotes, as referring to this species, the remarks recorded by mein S. F., 
I., 259, in regard to Anser albifrons. I called it A. erythropus then, no doubt, but 
erythropus of Fleming, which is a/dzfroxs (a name I also quoted,) and not erythropus 
of Linné. Moreover I distinctly called it the White-fronted and sof the Dwarf 
Goose, and gaye dimensions ! 
