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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
We study scenarios where comets are not original members of the Solar System but have been acquired from the surrounding medium through dynamical evolution. This leads to estimates of the present day number density of comets in the interstellar medium which are not in contradiction with observational upper limits. We also consider the dynamical transfer of Oort Cloud comets into short period comets. The process is very sensitive to the inclination of the comet orbit which leads to strong bias in favour of low inclinations in short comet orbits.