244 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
destroyed by a dog that got into the shed where it was being 
*^"The Lesser White-fronted Goose has hitherto only been 
recorded as a visitor to the British Isles on some hf "Jozen 
ocea^ions ; and it is to be regretted that the loss of what is 
firmly behaved to have been a specimen of this species, has 
deprived the county of its first recorded occurrence m 
Scotland.] 
THE BEAN-GOOSE. Anser fabalis (Latham). 
"... higher o'erhead now seen 
On the pale sky, no'w lost against the cloud, 
Shifting their trailing figures of array. 
The wild geese cackled through the firmament. 
Far going down upon the softer south :^ 
These be the tokens o£,aji«orous^Ume. ^ „ 
A winter-visitant to the Solway. 
As has already been pointed out, the confusion of this spedcs 
with the Grey Lag-Goose, has been <=°»f ^^^^^ ^.^^^^^^^ 
becrmnine of the nineteenth century the Bean-Goose is 
believedto have been the commonest of the grey gee^e^on 
the Solway, and it is only of recent years that its numbers, 
have been surpassed by the Grey Lag ot„ti,tical 
The local records of " wild geese m both the Statistical 
Accounts of Scotland and in the contemporaiy newspapers 
do not differentiate between the various species . ^-nd such 
records for the most part only refer to t^e abidance 
or scarcity of geese according to the severity or mildness 
Wmtm Jardine, writing in 1832 of the birds met ,nth 
in the parish of Applegarth and Sibbaldbie says : ^e 
bean goose (Anser ferns) in flocks frequent the 
and holms in severe winters "* and at the same date it is 
* New Stat. Acct. Scot., Vol. IV., p. 181. 
