Seven or eight species of goose have been recorded as winter visitors to India. With two exceptions they honour us with their presence only on rare occasions, and do not really form part and parcel of our Indian avifauna. The exceptions are the grey lag goose and the barred-headed goose, which visit India every winter in their millions. It is these that form the subject of this essay. It is difficult for the dweller in the south to realise how abundant geese are in Northern India throughout the cold weather. Flocks of them fly overhead so frequently that they scarcely attract notice. Each flight looks like a great trembling, quivering V, floating in the air, a V of which the angle is wide and one limb frequently longer than the other. During flight geese are distinguishable from cranes and storks by this V-shaped formation, and by the fact that they never sail on expanded wings; they progress by means of a steady, regular motion of the pinions, and are able to cover long distances in short time. Geese on the wing are distinguishable from the smaller species of duck by their larger size, and from Brahminy ducks (Casarca rutila) by their lighter colour. Moreover, the curious note of this last species is very different from the cackle of geese. Brahminy ducks go about in couples; geese fly in flocks.

Like most birds which breed in the far north, geese are largely nocturnal; their cries as they fly overhead are among the commonest of the sounds which break the stillness of the winter night in Upper India. They feed mainly in the hours of darkness, and do a certain amount of damage to the young wheat; nor do they leave their feeding ground until the sun is high in the heavens, when they repair to a river bank or shallow lake, where they love to bask in the sun, all with the head tucked under the wing, save one or two who do duty as sentinels.

The grey lag goose of India is, I believe, identical with the wild goose of England. This is a belief not shared by everyone. For over a century this species has been the plaything of the systematist. LinnÆus classed ducks and geese as one genus—Anas. This goose he called Anas anser, the goose-duck. But it was soon recognised that ducks and geese are not sufficiently nearly related to form a common genus; hence, the geese were formed into the genus Anser, and the grey lag goose was then called Anser cinereus, the ashy-coloured goose, a not inappropriate name, although the bird is brown rather than grey. But the name was not allowed to stand. For some reason or other it was changed to Anser ferus. Then it was altered to Anser anser—the goosey goose, presumably meaning the goose par excellence. Then Salvadori discovered, or thought that he discovered, that the grey lag geese of the East are not quite like those of the West; he therefore made two species of the bird, calling the Indian variety Anser rubirostris, the red-billed goose. AlphÉraky denies the alleged difference. The result is that the bird has some half-dozen names, each of which has its votaries. It is this kind of thing which deprives classical nomenclature of all its utility. Until ornithologists learn to grasp the simple fact that the external appearance of every living creature is the result of two sets of forces, internal or hereditary, and external or the influence of environment, they will always be in difficulty over species. Englishmen who dwell in sunny climates get browned by the sun, yet no one dreams of making a separate species of sun-burned Englishmen. Why, then, do so in the case of birds whose external appearance is slightly altered by their environment?

Even as scientific men have toyed with the Latin name of the bird, so have compositors played with its English name. Nine out of ten of them flatly decline to call it the grey lag goose; they persist in setting it down as the grey leg goose. If the bird’s legs were grey this would not matter. Unfortunately they are not. In extenuation of the conduct of the compositor there is the fact that etymologists are unable to agree as to the meaning and derivation of the word lag.

The other common species of goose is the barred-headed goose (Anser indicus). This is not found in Europe. It is a grey bird, more so than the grey lag goose, with two black bands across the back of the head. The upper one runs from eye to eye, the lower is parallel to, but shorter than, the upper bar. The back of the neck is black and the sides white. There is some black in the wings. The bill and feet are yellow. Both these species of goose are a little smaller than the domestic bird.

Geese are very wary creatures, and possess plenty of intelligence. They all seem to know intuitively the range of a gun, and as they object to being peppered with No. 2, or any other kind of shot, it is necessary for the sportsman to have recourse to guile if he would make a bag. It is this which makes shooting them such good sport. Every bird obtained has to be worked for. By rising very early in the morning the gunner may sometimes get a shot at them while they are feeding. They seem to be less wary then than later in the day. Sometimes, when riding at sunrise, I have suddenly found myself within forty yards of a flock of geese feeding in a field.

They usually indulge in their midday siesta in an open place, and invariably post sentinels. For this reason they do not give one much opportunity of observing them. They cannot, or pretend they cannot, distinguish between the naturalist and the sportsman. In this, perhaps, they are wise. Their intelligence has, I think, been exaggerated. Last winter, when punting down the Jumna, I noticed a flock of geese resting on the moist sand at the water’s edge. Behind them was a semi-circular sandbank, some fifteen feet in height. This bank sheltered the geese from the wind. Birds, like ladies, object to having their feathers ruffled. It occurred to me that owing to the sandbank one could approach quite near to the flock unobserved. Knowing that geese are creatures of habit, I counted on the flock being at the identical spot next day. Consequently, I returned the following morning and approached on all fours from the sandbank side, and was rewarded by securing a barred-headed goose. I repeated the operation on the following day, and again bagged a goose. The third day I was unable to visit the place, so sent a friend, who was only prevented from slaying a goose by the fact that two Brahminy ducks in mid-stream saw him approaching and gave the alarm. We left the camp the next day. I do not, therefore, know whether the geese continued to frequent that danger-fraught sandbank. The fact that they allowed themselves to be caught napping thrice shows that they have not quite so much intelligence as some people credit them with. For all that, the goose is no fool.