Geese, Swans and Ducks
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of approximately 600 geese, swan and duck (Anatidae) specimens, and numerous eggs. These date from the early 1800s to 2006.
This collection contains at least 66 geese, 35 swan and nearly 500 duck specimens. These are mainly cabinet skins and mounted specimens but there are a few skeletons. There are also clutches of eggs, several of which have associated down that allows species identifications to be confirmed, and a small number of nests. Most of the specimens are from Scotland or other parts of Britain, but there are also examples from Iceland, the USA, Chile, India, Australia, New Zealand, Malawi and Ethiopia. Some of the specimens from the Cochrane and Poltalloch Collections date from the early 1800s, but many specimens date from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. These include 97 swan, duck and geese skins mainly from the Firth of Forth, given by John Duncan in 1950. Important specimens from the latter half of the 1900s include the only known British specimen of the northern eider (Someria mollissima borealis), found dead off Musselburgh in 1978.
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