THE BARRED-HEADED GOOSE. 87 
the Grey Lag, that these Geese have of skylarking, when 
descending to the water after feeding. He said :— 
“In Manipur, I have often watched them returning from their 
feeding grounds to the lake where they intend to pass the day; 
their cry is heard before they can themselves be seen ; they then 
appear flying in the form of a wedge, each bird keeping his 
place with perfect regularity ; when they reach the lake they circle 
round once or twice, and, finally before settling, each bird tumbles 
over in the air two or three times precisely like a tumbler 
pigeon. After they have once settled they preserve no regular 
formation.” 
THIS SPECIES breeds in thousands at the Tso-mourari Lake, 
and other sweet-water and salt lakes in Ladakh, and equally 
in all the innumerable lakes of the Thibetan Plateau. 
I have never had the good fortune to obtain the eggs ; 
perhaps I might have found a late nest had I thought of 
hunting for it, but hundreds of goslings were already about, by 
the latter end of June, and at that time I concluded that I was 
too late for eggs. Drew, however, writing of an Island in the 
Tso-mourari, says :— 
“The zsland is about half a mile from the shore, near mid- 
way in the length of the western side—it may be 100 yards 
from corner to corner in one direction and 60 yards in another ; 
it is of gneiss rock, rising only nine or ten feet above the 
water ; the soundings before given show that there is about 
100 feet of water between the island and the near shore. This 
little place, being ordinarily undisturbed by man, is a great 
resort of the Gull, which in Ladakhi is called Chagharatse ; the 
surface was nearly all covered with its droppings, and there 
were hundreds of the young about ; most of these must have 
been hatched near the beginning of July. Having heard that 
it was a matter of interest with some ornithologists to learn 
about the nidification of the Wild (Barred-headed) Goose, I 
was on the look-out for information concerning it, and I found 
that this island is one of the places where it lays its eggs. I 
was told by the Champas that they find the eggs there just 
before the ice breaks up—say the beginning of May ; after that 
they have no means of reaching the island. I myself found 
there a broken egg, but at the time I was on the island (the 
last week in July), the young had all been hatched. A few 
days later, I followed the same inquiry in the valley of the Salt 
Lake, and on an earthy island in the fresh-water lake called 
Panbuk, I found a nest where the mother was sitting with some 
goslings and two eggs, one just breaking with the chick; the 
other egg I measured and found to be 3} inches by 24, and very 
nearly elliptical in form. The nest was a slight hollow, lined 
with first, a few bits of a soft herb, then with feathers. I was 
