LESSER SNOW GOOSE. 65 



DISTRIBUTION AND MIGRATION OF GEESE. 



Chen liyperborea (Pall.). Lesser Snow Goose. 



Breeding range. — Much remains to be learned of the boundaries of 

 the summer home of the snow geese. "Vast numbers" of this goose 

 were seen on the northwestern portion of Banks Land, latitude 74°, 

 August 19, 1851, as though they had come from more northern 

 breeding grounds, and in the spring of 1851 and 1852 flocks were seen 

 passing north in the vicinity of the northern shores of this island; and 

 yet no snow geese have been reported by any of the various expedi- 

 tions that have summered on the islands immediately to the north 

 of Banks Land. Snow geese are known to breed along the Arctic 

 coast east of the Mackenzie River and to cross to Victoria Land, 

 but here the record ends. Wollaston Land and Victoria Land form 

 an enormous island whose interior has never been visited hj white 

 men. Many explorers have passed through the region to the north- 

 Ward, but no one has reported a snow goose in the whole district east 

 of longitude 115"^ and north of latitude 70°, with the exception of a 

 single flock seen near Bellot Strait in June, 1859, and three wanderers 

 found in June, 1882, at Fort Conger, a thousand miles north of the 

 regular range. Ross lived for three years at the base of the Boothia 

 Peninsula without seeing a snow goose. Parry found but few birds 

 and only one nest during his two years' sojourn on Melville Peninsula, 

 and Kumlein reports them as rare visitants at Cumberland Sound. It 

 follows, therefore, by exclusion, that*the great bulk of the snow geese 

 breed south of a line drawn from the north end of Southampton Island 

 to the south end of Melville Island. It is supposed that the lesser 

 snow goose is the form l)reeding at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, 

 and east to about longitude 115°. It follows, therefore, that the 

 greater snow goose is restricted in its breeding range to the district 

 from Melville Peninsula to Victoria Land, an area perhaps half as 

 large as Greenland, as yet scarcely visited by an ornithologist. 



The most western breeding place of the lesser snow goose is Richards 

 Island, on the eastern side of the mouth of the Mackenzie River; 

 thence it rang'es eastward to about Coronation Gulf. There seem to 

 be two routes by which the snow geese reach their summer home. They 

 are ccmunon in winter in California; indeed, this seems to be their 

 principal winter abode. In the spring migration some continue up 

 the coast to Alaska, but all observers agree that they are not common 

 in Alaska during the spring migration. On the other hand, the spe- 

 cies is an abundant migrant along the Mackenzie at Fort Simpson, just 

 south of the ))reeding grounds, and the flocks in spring fly at a great 

 height on their course toward the noi-th. 1Miis is just the route the 

 snow R-eese would take from California' to their breeding grounds if 



