54 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
of confinement, or rather of half domestication, many ornithologists are inclined to 
doubt that the birds of this species, occasionally killed at large in England, and 
those met with once or twice in Ireland, were actually wild; even the late Mr. 
Thompson, whose judgment, accuracy, and intimate acquaintance with the orni¬ 
thology of his native land, were, in my humble opinion, unequalled, in his account 
of the Egyptian goose, vol. 3, page 95 (of the Birds of Ireland), after having men¬ 
tioned some instances in which this species, freshly killed, had come under his 
notice, says, “ I cannot think that the birds here noticed were truly wild but then 
he qualifies it by adding, “ though this species may possibly, as well as others, from 
the south-east of Europe, and north of Africa, occasionally visit this island,” thus 
admitting the possibility of their doing so. Jardine gives the species a place among 
British birds; so does Yarrell, who, among several instances which he records of 
their occurrence in England, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, mentions the remark¬ 
able case of a flock of about eighty appearing in Hampshire in 1824. M. Temminck 
admits it in his “ Manual of the Birds of Europe and M. De Selys Longchamps 
among the birds of Belgium. According to Temminck, it inhabits Africa from the 
north to the middle ; is found in Turkey; visits the mouths of the Danube; the 
islands of the Grecian Archipelago, and has been killed in Germany and Sicily. The 
birds having thus been killed in a wild state in so many different parts of Europe, 
including England, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands, there is nothing preposterous 
in the conclusion that it sometimes visits Ireland in a perfectly wild state. Their 
manners and habits during the three weeks in which I had daily opportunities of 
observing them were certainly not those of tamed, or even partially tamed, geese. 
In their mode of flight they more resembled the Brent (Anser torquatus) than any 
of the other species of wild geese seen in this country. I think I have shown, on the 
concurrent testimony of the different naturalists whose names I have enumerated, 
that they are of discursive habits, and from my own observation I know they are of 
very powerful flight. On one occasion in particular their vigour and strength of 
wing were exemplified : it was blowing a strong gale from the westward, and the 
geese were flying up the river Boyne right in the teeth of the storm at a great eleva¬ 
tion. I watched them through a good telescope, and was much struck by their rapid 
and well-sustained flight. The wary cunning and watchful habits displayed by the 
wounded bird for the four or five days during which she baffled my many attempts 
to capture her were certainly not those of a domesticated bird. I am informed by 
Mrs. Baker, of Grafton-street (who in preserving them has shown her usual skill and 
good taste), that the stomach of the male contained the roots of grass ; that of the 
female was empty, in consequence of being unable, from her wound, to reach the 
feeding grounds. As far as I am aware, the only reason given by ornithologists for 
supposing that the Egyptian geese hitherto killed at large in this country were not 
wild is, that the bird being so often kept on ponds may have escaped thence. Cer¬ 
tainly, in many instances, that may be true; but when we find a flock exhibiting 
none of the characteristics of birds which have been in a state of confinement, but, 
on the contrary, possessed of all the attributes of a wild bird—when we remember 
that these birds visit annually many parts of Europe, are endowed with great power 
of endurance and strength of wing, I am only surprised that the species does not 
oftener occur in Ireland. Compare the power of flight of this bird, still keeping in 
mind its discursive habits, with that of so many stragglers, such as White’s thrush 
(Turdus Whitei), which you no doubt remember Professor Allman exhibited in this 
society some years ago; or with the beautiful specimen of the golden Oriole (Oriolus 
galbula) in our museum, a species of which six or seven examples have been killed in 
Ireland within the last thirty years—-nay, even look at many of our summer visitors, 
whose little wings carry them in safety over hundreds of miles of trackless ocean, and 
I think we may cease to doubt that these Egyptian geese have at one time actually 
floated on the waters of the Nile. I once, on a stormy day in October, stood upon 
the summit of a cliff (in Donegal), 1,954 feet above the Atlantic, whose white-crested 
billows thundered against its base; the only living things besides my three companions 
and myself were a ring ouzel (Turdus torquatus) and a snow bunting (Plectro- 
phanes nivalis). On a block of conglomerate, which in beauty almost rivalled the 
costly scagliola, sat these two strangers, met for the first time and the last—the one 
the representative of summer, about to commence his long and perilous journey to 
