128 
BIRDS OF LEICESTERSHIRE AND RUTLAND. 
In Eutland. — As in Leicestershire. — Lord Gainsborough informs me that 
one was shot on the Welland, near Stamford, by Mr. Sellars of that town, in 
January, 1888, and was preserved by Evans of Bourne. 
CAN^ADA GOOSE. Bernicla canadensis (Linnaeus). 
An introduced species, often found at large, especially in winter, and roaming 
so far afield as to give rise to the doubt if it may not soon become feral. As 
shewing how far the roving habits of these birds will lead them, I can testify 
that, being at Belvoir in 1884, I saw a skein of Geese flying high overhead, 
going eastward, and called Mr. Ingram’s attention to this, who replied : — “ Only 
our Canada Geese going to feed on the marshes.” There are two in the 
Museum, marked in the catalogue as “shot on Groby Pool, April, 1844. Part 
of a flock of twenty.” The late Mr. Widdowson told me that four came to 
Stapleford Ponds about 1876, two of which were shot. On 4th Sept., 1885, 
five were killed in four shots, out of a skein of eight which had settled on the 
river Wreake in the parish of Asfordby. They were shot by a gentleman whose 
name I do not publish, as he evidently was not aware that he was shooting 
birds which were most probably semhdomesticated, and on their travels from 
some adjacent ornamental water. Those which escaped subsequently fell victims, 
I understand, to the guns of other people. INIr. 31acaulay informed me that 
four were shot out of a flock of twelve at Smeeton, on 8th Jan., 1887. 
During the summer of 1844, according to Harley, a pair bred on an island 
in the middle of Groby Pool, but it was not certain that the eggs were productive. 
These were probably part of the flock of twenty mentioned above. Messrs. Lever 
and Moss have recorded in ‘The Zoologist,’ 1885 (p. 259), the nesting of this bird 
on a pond at Garendon, in May, 1885, and appeared to think that this was not 
a case of the nesting of an escaped bird, and instanced the fact that a flock 
of about forty frequented the same waters in the winter of 1884, and also before 
that time. 
MUTE SWAN. Cygnus olor (Gmelin). 
“ Tame Swan.” 
Introduced some centuries ago into Britain, and now domesticated. It 
breeds at the Abbey Park, Leicester, Thornton Reservoir, and other places in 
the county. — Two fine birds — an adult and a young female — strayed from the 
Abbey Park on 11th Jan., 1884, and were shot near the “Twelve Bridges” by 
two unknown men, who, on being pursued by a policeman, dropped their booty, 
thereby benefiting the Museum to the extent of these two specimens. 
In Rutland. — As in Leicestershire. — Mr. Horn writes : — “ I have seen them 
on the wing in this county, and a very pretty sight it was.” 
