Anser erythropus, Linné.
Vernacular Names.—[ ? 1
HIS species is so rare a straggler to India, that I have
never myself seen a living wild specimen.*
Colonel Irby tells us that, on the 24th of October
1859, he killed two and saw a third Dwarf Goose
near Seetapore, in Oudh. Mr. A. Anderson obtained
specimens near Hurdui (Oudh) and Futtehpur (North-
West Provinces). Dr. Bonavia gave me a specimen
procured near Lucknow. Mr. Chill sent me three specimens
shot by him on the 3rd, 12th, and 29th March 1879, near Sultanpore,
some 30 miles south of Delhi. We have no other
record of its occurrence within our limits.
In Europe it is recorded from the more northern and central
portions of that continent, extending into Turkey, Greece,
the Caspian, Siberia up to its northernmost point, Mongolia,
China, and Japan. It has never yet been observed in the
British Isles. I do not find it recorded from Northern Africa,
but towards the north-east it does occur, as Heuglin says, that
there is no doubt that it occasionally strays into Lower Egypt.
Mr. J. H. Gurney, junior, exhibited a specimen killed at
Damietta at a meeting of the Zoo, (2nd May 1876), and
Dresser mentions a specimen shot by Mr. Cavendish Taylor in
Upper Egypt. It has not been recorded from any part of
Turkestan.
There is no doubt that the distribution of this species is
very imperfectly known at present, it having for long been
confounded with albifrons, to which it bears a strong resemblance,
and of which it is almost a perfect minature, but from
which it is distinguishable at a glance, by its smaller size, its
tiny bill, its darker general tone of plumage and much darker
brown rump, and also, in adults, by the much greater distance
* Dresser quotes, as referring to this species, the remarks recorded by me in S. F.,
I., 259, in regard to Anser eUUfrbns. I called it A. ttytkrapus then, no doubt, but
erythropus of Fleming, which is atbifrons (a name I also quoted,) and not erythropus
of Linné. Moreover I distinctly called it the White-fronted and not the Dwarf
Goose, and gave dimensions !