Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/259

  The other British species of typical geese are the bean-goose (A. segetum), the pink-footed (A. brachyrhynchus) and the white-fronted (A. albifrons). On the continent of Europe, but not yet recognized as occurring in Britain, is a small form of the last (A. erythropus) which is known to breed in Lapland. All these, for the sake of discrimination, may be divided into two groups—(1) those having the “nail” at the tip of the bill white, or of a very pale flesh colour, and (2) those in which this “nail” is black. To the former belong the grey lag goose, as well as A. albifrons and A. erythropus, and to the latter the other two. A. albifrons and A. erythropus, which differ little but in size,—the last being not much bigger than a mallard (Anas boschas),—may be readily distinguished from the grey lag goose by their bright orange legs and their mouse-coloured upper wing-coverts, to say nothing of their very conspicuous white face and the broad black bars which cross the belly, though the last two characters are occasionally observable to some extent in the grey lag goose, which has the bill and legs flesh-coloured, and the upper wing-coverts of a bluish-grey. Of the second group, with the black “nail,” A. segetum has the bill long, black at the base and orange in the middle; the feet are also orange, and the upper wing-coverts mouse-coloured, as in A. albifrons and A. erythropus, while A. brachyrhynchus has the bill short, bright pink in the middle, and the feet also pink, the upper wing-coverts being nearly of the same bluish-grey as in the grey lag goose. Eastern Asia possesses in A. grandis a third species of this group, which chiefly differs from A. segetum in its larger size. In North America there is only one species of typical goose, and that belongs to the white-“nailed” group. It very nearly resembles A. albifrons, but is larger, and has been described as distinct under the name of A. gambeli. Central Asia and India possess in the bar-headed goose (A. indicus) a bird easily distinguished from any of the foregoing by the character implied by its English name; but it is certainly somewhat abnormal, and, indeed, under the name of Eulabia, has been separated from the genus Anser, which has no other member indigenous to the Indian Region, nor any at all to the Ethiopian, Australian or Neotropical Regions.

America possesses by far the greatest wealth of Anserine forms. Beside others, presently to be mentioned, its northern portions are the home of all the species of snow-geese belonging to the genus Chen. The first of these is C. hyperboreus, the snow-goose proper, a bird of large size, and when adult of a pure white, except the primaries, which are black. This has long been deemed a visitor to the Old World, and sometimes in considerable numbers, but the later discovery of a smaller form, C. albatus, scarcely differing except in size, throws some doubt on the older records, especially since examples which have been obtained in the British Islands undoubtedly belong to this lesser bird, and it would be satisfactory to have the occurrence in the Old World of the true C. hyperboreus placed on a surer footing. So nearly allied to the species last named as to have been often confounded with it, is the blue-winged goose, C. coerulescens, which is said never to attain a snowy plumage. Then we have a very small species, long ago described as distinct by Samuel Hearne, the Arctic traveller, but until 1861 discredited by ornithologists. Its distinctness has now been fully recognized, and it has received, somewhat unjustly, the name of C. rossi. Its face is adorned with numerous papillae, whence it has been removed by Elliot to a separate genus, Exanthemops, and for the same reason it has long been known to the European residents in the fur countries as the “horned wavey”—the last word being a rendering of a native name, Wawa, which signifies goose. Finally, there appears to belong to this section, though it has been frequently referred to another (Chloephaga), and has also been made the type of a distinct genus (Philacte), the beautiful emperor goose, P. canagica, which is almost peculiar to the Aleutian Islands, though straying to the continent in winter, and may be recognized by the white edging of its remiges.

The southern portions of the New World are inhabited by about half a dozen species of geese not nearly akin to the foregoing, and separated as the genus Chloephaga. The most noticeable of them are the rock or kelp goose, C. antarctica, and the upland goose, C. magellanica. In both of these the sexes are totally unlike in colour, but in others a greater similarity obtains. Formerly erroneously associated with the birds of this group comes one which belongs to the northern hemisphere, and is common to the Old World as well as the New. It contains the geese which have received the common names of bernacles or brents, and the scientific appellations of Bernicla and Branta—for the use of either of which much may be said by nomenclaturists. All the species of this section are distinguished by their general dark sooty colour, relieved in some by white of greater or less purity, and by way of distinction from the members of the genus Anser, which are known as grey geese, are frequently called by fowlers black geese. Of these, the best known both in Europe and North America is the brent-goose—the Anas bernicla of Linnaeus, and the B. torquata of many modern writers—a truly marine bird, seldom (in Europe at least) quitting salt-water, and coming southwards in vast flocks towards autumn, frequenting bays and estuaries on the British coasts, where it lives chiefly on sea-grass (Zostera maritima). It is known to breed in Spitsbergen and in Greenland. A form which is by some ornithologists deemed a good species, and called by them B. nigricans, occurs chiefly on the Pacific coast of North America. In it the black of the neck, which in the common brent terminates just above the breast, extends over most of the lower parts. The true bernacle-goose, the B. leucopsis of most authors, is but a casual visitor to North America, but is said to breed in Iceland, and occasionally in Norway. Its usual incunabula, however, still form one of the puzzles of the ornithologist, and the difficulty is not lessened by the fact that it will breed freely in semi-captivity, while the brent-goose will not. From the latter the bernacle-goose is easily distinguished by its larger size and white cheeks. Hutchins’s goose (B. Hutchinsi) seems to be its true representative in the New World. In this the face is dark, but a white crescentic or triangular patch extends from the throat on either side upwards behind the eye. Almost exactly similar in coloration to the last, but greatly superior in size, and possessing 18 rectrices, while all the foregoing have but 16, is the common wild goose of America, B. canadensis, which, for more than two centuries has been introduced into Europe, where it propagates so freely that it has been included by nearly all the ornithologists of this quarter of the globe as a member of its fauna. An allied form, by some deemed a species, is B. leucopareia, which ranges over the western part of North America, and, though having 18 rectrices, is distinguished by a white collar round the lower part of the neck. The most diverse species of this group of geese are the beautiful B. ruficollis, a native of north-eastern Asia, which occasionally strays to western Europe, and has been obtained more than once in Britain, and that which is peculiar to the Hawaian archipelago, B. sandvicensis.

The largest living goose is that called the Chinese, Guinea or swan-goose, Cygnopsis cygnoides, and this is the stock whence the domestic geese of several eastern countries have sprung. It may often be seen in English parks, and it is found to cross readily with the common tame goose, the offspring being fertile, 