9 4
PINK-TOOTED GOOSE.
Attser brachyrhymhus, BAILLON.
" phixnicopus, BARTLETT.
Ansa—A Goose. Brachyrhymhus. Brachiis—Short. Rhytichos—A bill.
I N the year 1888, M. Baillon, the eminent naturalist of Abbeville,
described the present as a new species, under the name which he then
assigned to it. It appears, however, according to the statement of Meyer,
that M. Temminck has asserted that it had been previously observed
in Holland, in the winters of IS 29 and IS.30. as also subsequently in
1838. Mr. Bartlett was the first to notice it in this country, and
unaware that it had been before discovered, as noticed above, gave as
its specific name that which has hence become a synonym.
These Geese occur in Europe, Asia, and America, and in cold weather
some cross over to the northern parts of Africa. In the first-named
continent they have been observed in France, Italy, Hungary, and
Turkey, and frequent, for the purpose of breeding, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden, Finland, and the Hebrides.
I n Yorkshire they occur on Thome Moor. One was shot on the coast
in the winter of 1851, as Mr. William I'Vlkin, Junior, of Carrington,
near Nottingham, has informed me; one also at Ilaxby, near York, on
the loth, of January, 1850, My servant found one, which had been
barely winged, in a field near Warter, in the East-Riding, on the 9th.
of December, 1854. Three were sold in the Doncaster market in 1810.
I n 1841 one was shot by Mr. Coke, afterwards Lord Leicester, out of
a flock of about twenty. Five others afterwards, and many more seen.
In Northamptonshire it is an occasional visitor, as the Hon. T. L. Powys
has written to me. In Norfolk these birds occurred several times near
Lynn, in the beginning of 1851; as they had also done in the winter
of 1819-50. Two in December, 1851; one, which had been previously
wounded, was caught near Up ware, on the bank of the Cam, in
Cambridgeshire, in January, 1850. Three, one male and two females,