. The sportsman's British bird book . e BritishIsles, where it is mostabundant on the eastcoast of Scotland(especially the Firthof Forth, where it isthe most common of the wild geese) and certain districts of the south and west of England it is but rarely seen, and it is onlysomewhat less uncommon on the west coast of Scotland and in theHebrides ; while up to the date of writing only a single example hadbeen obtained in Ireland, although the species has apparently beenrecognised there on at least one other occasion. Extreme shyness seems to be one of the characteristic traits of the
. The sportsman's British bird book . e BritishIsles, where it is mostabundant on the eastcoast of Scotland(especially the Firthof Forth, where it isthe most common of the wild geese) and certain districts of the south and west of England it is but rarely seen, and it is onlysomewhat less uncommon on the west coast of Scotland and in theHebrides ; while up to the date of writing only a single example hadbeen obtained in Ireland, although the species has apparently beenrecognised there on at least one other occasion. Extreme shyness seems to be one of the characteristic traits of thepink-footed goose, which is believed to nest in Spitzbergen in part onlow rocks near the coast and in part on inland cliffs. At Holkham, in Norfolk, when the tide is out, these geese passtheir time out of harms way on sand-spits, but resort to corn-lands insearch of such grain as may have been left on the stubbles. One writer gives the maximum length as 26 and another as 30 inches ; a wide diflferencein a matter of less than a yard .. GOOSK. BARNACLE GOOSE 279 The snow-goose {Choi hyperboreiis or albatus), of the Hudson Baydistrict, which is too rare a visitor to the United Kingdom to beentitled to a definite place in the British list, is the typical repre-sentative of a small genus of Arctic geese characterised, among otherfeatures, by the unusual stoutness of the beak and the white or bluishplumage relieved by black wings. In the present species the plumageis white, with the exception of the black wing-quills and the ashy greyprimary coverts ; while the legs and beak are red, with black bordersto the latter. Two of these geese were obtained out of a flock inWexford Harbour in November 1871, and two in County Mayo in1877, a party of three were seen in flight in Yorkshire in January1891, four on the Solway (perhaps belonging to the same flock) in thesame month and year, and a flock of twenty off the Northumberlandcoast in January 1892, while one specimen was recor
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