It docs not appear to extend into any part of British Burma.
This species is not confined to the plains, or even the submontane
tracts; in the cold season it is at times seen in suitable
places in the interior of the Himalayas, up to elevations of
from four to six thousand feet, as in Nepal, Kullu and Kashmir.
This species is not uncommon during the winter in Afghanistan.
In Western Turkestan it breeds commonly, and some
winter there. In Kashghar, it breeds freely, especially about
Maral Bashi, but does not winter in the country. It is found
in summer throughout Eastern Siberia, except in the extreme
north. I do not find it recorded from Northern China, but it
winters apparently in those portions of the empire, south of the
Yang-tse-kiang. Prjevalsky met with them breeding in Southeastern
Mongolia, the upper valley of the Hoangho, and as far
south as Lake Kokonor, where, he says, they were rather common
in the latter part of March. He adds that this species
arrives in South-eastern Mongolia, about the middle of March,
or perhaps earlier, and in Tsaidam about the 18th of February.
This species has not been reported from Japan, nor as yet from
Persia, Asia Minor, Palestine, or North-eastern Africa, though
further west as near Tangier and in Algeria, it is found in
Northern Africa.
It occurs throughout Europe, except in the extremcst north,
for the most part, in the south in winter and (though some
breed as far south as Bulgaria and Spain) in the north during
the summer.
A great deal has still to be done in working out the distribution
of this species in Asia, if not in Europe also. For long
it was confounded with the very distinct species albifrofis and
brachyrhynckus, and even now I rather suspect that two recognizably
distinct species are included under the name Grey
Lag-Goose.
TINS SPECIES rarely appears in Upper India before the last
week in October, and further south the first week in November
is, I think, the earliest time for their arrival. In some years they
are a good week or ten days later. Everywhere many, I
believe, leave the country during the first week in March, but
many may be met with in the north until quite the end of that
month ; and I have shot them once as late as the ioth April, on
the Jhclum, a little below the station of that name. The early
date on which Prjcvalsky observed them in Tsaidam will have
been noticed, and Scully says, that in Kashghar he got his first
specimen on the 28th of February, and that during the early
part of March they were often seen flying over the fort at
Yarkand and going straight north.
Where Geese arc much shot at, they feed in the meadows
and fields exclusively during the hours of darkness, but where
comparatively unmolested, you will find them grazing in the
young wheat till nine o'clock in the morning and back again at
their pastures by 4 P.M.
When not out feeding they spend their time dozing or
daudling about on the margin of some lake or the bank of some
river, always by preference choosing .some island in these for
their' noon-tide siesta. Unless disturbed, they very rarely take
to the water ; where you see a flock swimming about in mid
stream of one of our larger rivers or in the open water of some
broad, between the hours of ten and three, you may generally
safely conclude that they have been recently fired at, or frightened
in some way.
They feed exclusively, so far as my experience goes, on tender
shoots of grass, young corn, and other spring crops, and on
grain of all kinds—gram, when nearly ripe, being a great attraction
to them. Generally they are pretty well on the alert when
feeding inland, but in parts of the country where the people
have 110 guns, and there are no native or European sportsmen
about, they get very bold ; and when put up at one end of a
field, fluster lazily away and settle a couple of hundred
yards away in another field, and give the cultivators a
good deal of trouble, since three or four hundred of these
birds will clear off an incredible amount of grain in a morning.
In such localities you may with a common blanket, donned
native-fashion over head and body, walk up to within thirty
yards of a flock, and then judiciously startling them get a
couple of effective shots into the mass, as it rises. In such cases
never fire until they have risen, and are about the level of your
face. A shot on the ground, amongst the crops, with an ordinary
twelve bore may yield three, generally only two, often onlyone
; the same shot fired when the flock is on the wing, and
about gun level, will account for from five to eight. I have often
got ten, and once or twice more, with two barrels in such cases.
Where, however, they have been once thus shot at, you will
not get near them again for some time without further precautions,
but even where on the alert, you may often stalk
them behind a horse and get to within forty or fifty yards. In
such cases it is best to make sure of your one or two birds on
the ground with the first shot, as you will seldom' have time
for more than one shot after they rise.
Although they rise rather awkwardly and slowly, with
violent and noisy flappings of their wings, they fly very strongly
and easily when once well off", and I do not know a more
beautiful sight than the sudden and rapid descent of a large
flock from high in the air to some sandbank. The flock comes
along in sober state, circles round decorously once or twice, and
then suddenly, as though all hands had been piped to skylark,
down they come with incredible rapidity, twisting and turning,
with an ease and grace for which no one could at other times
have given them credit. They swim well, no doubt, and dive
H