BlkJJs. 89 



At; Poair unicow, according to Murdoch, tliese birds atiive at the eud of the water-fowl 

 migration in spring, as tney do in 2<orton sound. They leave the former place for the south by 

 tneentl of September. A lew breed there and lay from lour to six eggs in a marshy place. 



A young female of the year lias the white nuchal collar of the adult indicated by a sprinkling of 

 white feathers in front and on sides of neck, but not behind. The feathers of the back are edged 

 with brown. There are two white banils across mitidie of wing, and the secondaries and tertiaries 

 are tipped with white. The feathers of abdomen are tipped with grayish, but the broad, white 

 aecliiiigs along the sides and flank of the adult are wanting. 



90. Philacte canagica (8evast.). Emperor Uoose (Esk. Xa-chafi-tlduk). 



Among the various species of birds more or less peculiar to Alaska this goose is perhaps the 

 most noteworthy. The limited area covered by it in its migration, its narrow range, reaching only 

 across the area bounded by tue Aleutian islands on the sout-ii, and the vicinity of Bering Straits on 

 the nortn, and the little known concerning its lite-history, ail joined to render this bird one of the 

 principal objects of my attention at aaint aiicliaeis. 



The Aleuts call these birds "beacti geese,'' Irom tlieir habit of frequenting the beaches, on 

 these islands, at low tide, to feed. Un sanan and otner of the Eastern Aleutian Islands, on the 

 Pacific side of the chain, these birils winter in extraordinary abundance, and are found at times 

 the entire length of the chain, Mr. Dall's statement (i'roc. Oai. Acad. Sci., February 8, 1873, and 

 March 14, 1874) of the absence of these' birds on tne western half of the Aleutian Islands being 

 based upon erroneous information, luey are far more numerous, however, ou the eastern half. 



Elliott records them as stragglers on the tiw »eai islands, where they sometimes land iu such 

 an exhausted condition that the natives catcu tuem in open chase over the grass. Dr. Adams 

 found them at Port Clarence, in Bering Straits, in tne summer of 1851. While lying becalmed oil 

 the Yukon mouth, June 17, 1877, I saw tUree of these birds heading across the sea towards Saint 

 Lawrence Island, where, during the summer of issi, they were found abundant on the southwest 

 coast. They were also found there by i^liiott some years previously, thus showing them to be 

 regular summer residents. 



(Jpoii the north coast of Siberia, just west of Bering Straits, iNordenskjold found them in 

 early summer, so there is little question that they breed thus far north at least, although I did 

 not find a single specimen during my visits to the same shore in the summer of 1881. On the 

 Alaskan side it is not very rare iu Golovina Bay and Port Clarence, both near the Straits, and 

 thence south it is found more commoniy, although stiii scarce, until the Yukon delta is reached; 

 here, upon the seaward part of this series of islands and along the marshy coa.st to the south, 

 oetween the Y'ukon and Kuskoquim Kivers, they rind their most congenial breeding ground, and 

 here they occur in great numbers, not, however, to the exclusion of the other geese, as Mr. Dall's 

 informant told him was the case on the Kusievak mouth of the Yukon, a statement I did not find 

 verified on my visit to that part of the delta. 



As an important part of this birds history i include here some extracts from the Nova Acta 

 Acad. Petropol., where, in Tome Xili, pp. iiio to 351, is the original description based upon a speci- 

 men secured by Biliings on his voyage to our coast near the close of last century. This specimen 

 was described on October 8, 1800, at the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, as quoted above, 

 it is stated that this example was obtained upon the isle of Canaga, or Kyktak, one of the 

 Aleutian islands nearest the American coast, and situated behind the Cape Alia.ska: "Et que le 

 nom de I'esp^ce, c'est A dire 'Canagica, a ete impose a cet oiseau du nom de la premiere isle, ou 

 de celui des principaux habitans de i'lsle Kyktak, appellee Caniagues ou Canagues, qui peut-etre 

 ayant apprivoises cet oiseau rout rendu domestique."' Vv hich latter is a rather naive surmise 

 on the part of our worthy author, not sustained by subsequent investigation. A miserable wood- 

 cut accompanies this description, i have been to considerable trouble to locate the island whence 

 the original specimen came, but have been unable to tind it under the names given on any English) 

 Kussian, or American chart i have esamiued. 



up to the time of the Telegraph Expedition but little was known of these geese, and the little 

 information secured by the explorers at that timd served to draw the attention of ornithologists 

 to this hyperborean species. 

 S. Jlis. lou r2 



