THE SHORT-BILLED GOOSE. 
41 
alighting for a few minutes among them, after which it flew onward 
and was seen no more.*' 
I have known a wounded bean goose eat bread, potatoes, 
and oatmeal dough from the hand, the second day after capture. 
Although partaking of boiled potatoes, it much preferred them 
uncooked. 
A sporting friend, residing in the south of Ayrshire, has occa- 
sionally met with bean geese in the bogs there, and sprung them 
from among beds of wild roses, on the fruit of which (“ a small 
mountain species,”) they must have been busied feeding, as proved 
on dissection of those killed. In Ireland, also, he once remarked 
the gizzard of this goose to be filled with the fruit of the rose.t 
I have found roots of plants in one. Water-cresses are said to be 
much eaten by this bird at Dromedaragh. The bean goose was 
the only one known to the gamekeeper at Ardimersy, Islay, in 
January 1849, as frequenting that island, which it does regularly 
in winter. It does not breed there. 
A very interesting account of this species and of the white-fronted 
goose will be found in St. John's f Wild Sports, &c., of the High- 
lands/ chap. xix. p. 151-158. 
The short-billed or pink-footed Goose — (. Anser br achy rhyn - 
chus, Baillon, Anser phoenicopus , Bartlett) though not uncommon in 
England or Scotland, cannot yet be announced as obtained in Ireland, 
though particularly looked for of late years. This is very singular, 
and more especially if there be no error in the statement that ’the 
bird breeds in numbers in some of the small islands of the Hebrides. J 
If it do so, we should expect flocks at least to pass over, and 
occasionally alight on Irish ground when migrating to or from those 
haunts. All the wild geese which I have seen in a fresh state in Belfast 
were either A. segetum or A. albifrons ; and in Dublin, those species, 
with the addition of A. ferns . 
* Rev. G. M. Black. 
f Dr. Richardson, in the ‘ Fauna Boreali- Americana,’ remarks that the “ Anser 
albifrons and A . hyperboreus feed chiefly on berries” (p. 439), 
1 Mr. John Macgillivray. 
