558 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVIII. 



of N. E. Siberia during breeding time, and they go to China for wintering, as 

 proved by Chinese iron shot and Chinese hooks often met with in the flesh of 

 th3se birds (cf. my paper in the Field, 1906, No. 2812, p. 861, replied by 

 " Shanghai" in No. 28l3, p. 909). Last, but not least, Swmhoe states that his 

 A. serrirostris swarms in winter in China* (Takoo, Peking, Foo-chow, Amoy, 

 Canton), and as Mr. Oates justly remarks — it was evidently the only Bean- 

 Goose known to Swinhoe. A. oatesi was procured at the same place where 

 Swinhoe met his geese (Foo-chow). 



There is only one point that seems to disaccord with this view. All my 

 Kolyma birds had pale band of the bill of a yellow colour. "A. oatesi — "as 

 Mr. Rickett now recollects, according to Mr. Oates — has it also yellow. 

 And type specimen of A. serrirostris is described by Swinhoe ( Ibis, 1867, 

 pp. 392-3) as having this part of bill " pinkish-red." When I suggested 

 that this description was made not from quite fresh specimens, Mr. Oates 

 replied that I " impute to Swinhoe a want of sagacity which would be 

 deplorable in a child," and in his paper to the Field Mr. Oates 

 adds that Swinhoe described the bill of " a recently killed gander " {Field, 1906. 

 No. 2814, p. 948). There is no question of sagacity, but any how Mr. Oates is 

 strangely mistaken, Swinhoe himself states in his " Jottings on Birds from my 

 Amoy Journal " {Ibis, 1867, p. 392), when describing the bird afterwards named 

 by him A . serrirostris ; " A friend sent me a w r ild gander shot on the flats of 

 the Changchow River " (italics are mine). A bird sent by post or otherwise 

 from place to place may be " recently " killed enough for some practical use, 

 and in many cases it wdl have its bill colouring unaltered, but as sometimes 

 yellow colour of the bill is altered to pink as soon as an hour or two after the 

 bird was shot, description of these colours must be made exactly on the spot, 

 not at home after shooting and sending specimens. And if it is not expressly 

 stated to be thus recorded a description of bill of a goose cannot be trusted 

 as to the colouring. 



I must add that Abbe David (David et Oustalet " Les Oiseaux de la Chine," 

 1878, p. 491), who evidently knew " immense flocks " and " swarms " of Bean- 

 Geese, described by Swinhoe, expressly states that they have " black and yellow 

 bills." 



Mr. Eugene W. Oates himself in his " Game Birds of India," II, 1899, p. 76, 



writes: " Anser serrirostris Gould The legs and bill are coloured as in the 



common Bean-Goose of Europe " (Ji. e. yellow !). 



I hope the following key will prove of some use for field observers. It must 

 be kept in mind that females average considerably smaller than ganders, that 

 birds of the year are also smaller and distinguishable by pale and black parts of 

 the bill being not in such a sharp contrast as in old birds (and feathers of 

 back narrower) 



