RED-BREASTED GOOSE. 
83 
pean birds, and its range elsewhere being little 
known, its value to collections is very great In 
our own country it has been more frequently taken 
or killed than elsewhere ; a fact which would lead 
us to believe that some far distant and little vi- 
sited region will afford a breeding station to some 
troops of this beautiful bird, for its great scarcity in 
any known locality, renders it difficult to account 
for the specimens which from time to time have oc- 
curred in our islands, amounting now, from the 
statistics so carefully brought together by Mr. Yar- 
rell, to seven or eight instances. These have prin- 
cipally been in the south, but one in Mr. Bullock’s 
collection was killed near Berwick on Tweed, which 
is the most northern British range on record. A 
few other specimens are mentioned by Temminck 
and Nilsson, in Scandinavia and northern Europe, 
but almost nothing is known of its habits. It is 
said, and the information is handed down from one 
to another, to breed on the shores of the Frozen 
Ocean, but we scarcely trace any minute or re- 
cent authenticity of the fact. The latest account 
from observation is that of M. Menetries, who, 
during the .Russian expedition on the Caucasus and 
frontiers of Persia, observed a considerable flock of 
this species near Lcukoran, so exhausted that they 
were caught by the hand and preserved in captivity. 
In feeding they preferred vegetables to grain.* 
“ Forehead, crown of the head, list down the 
back of the neck, chin, throat, and band extending 
* Quoted from Yarrell, iii. p. 82.. 
