BIRDS. 



91 



her eggs, the female flew straight away aud alighted at some distance, sometimes half a mile from 

 the nest, showiug very little concern. The male was rarely seen in the vicinity of the iiest. The 

 young are hatched the last of June or first of July, aud the adult birds undergo the summer 

 moult from the last of July to the middle of August. 



During this season the Eskimo set long lines of nets across the marshes and make drives of 

 water-fowl which have moulted their quill feathers. The slaughter is enormous : the wasteful 

 savages render it still worse by killing thousands of young birds which arc entrapped, saying that 

 they will thus prevent their being in the way during the next drive. 



Tens of thousands of geese are annually killed in the drives from the Yukon mouth south to 

 the Kuskoquim. In fall, as these geese regain their wings, they gather along the sea-coast and 

 seek their food from place to place until the approach of winter sends them a few hundred miles 

 south to the Aleutian Islands. 



The natives south of the Yukon use the skins of the Emperor Goose for making clothing, as 

 they also use the skins of the other water-fowl. They are more difficult to kill than the other 

 geese, and I have repeatedly knocked them down with a^charge of shot and seen them make off 

 apparently unhurt a moment later. 



The first plumage is known by the black or dark .spots sprinkled over the white hood. In 

 this stage the feet and legs are dusky olive-yellow, the -iris dark hazel: lower mandible horn- 

 black, as is the lower border of the upper mandible. The upper surface of the latter is blotched 

 with dark horn color on a livid purplish ground color, tingiug the dark mottling. After careful 

 examination I found the adult males and females to be absolutely indistinguishable, although 

 there is considerable individual variation. A fine adult female taken at the Yukon mouth 

 May 22 CSo. 10G7) had its iris hazel: lower mandible dark horn-color, with a white spot on each 

 side of the rami; membrane about uares livid-blue, the rest of up]>er surface of bill pale purplish 

 or fleshy white; edge of nail dark horn color — rest of same white; inside of mouth mottled black 

 and white: feet and legs a bright, rich orange-yellow. The following measurements, taken from 

 the fresh birds, will show the length and spread of wings: 



During Billings's Expedition to the Aleutian Islands, about 1700, the Empei'or Goose was 

 described by Sauer, who noted its arrival at Unalaska August 31 aud its departure the 18th of 

 the following April. It winters abundantly on the Near Islands. 



The latest contribution to its history is by Mr. C. H. Townsend, who records the capture of 

 an Em|)eror Goose on Humboldt Bay, Northern California, by Mr. Charles Fiebig, in the winter 

 of 1SS4, aud the latter stated that these geese occur there at long intervals. 



Olor columbianus (Ord). Whistling Swan (Esk. Kog-uzUul:). 



This fine bird arrives on the shore of Bering Sea in the vicinity of Saint Michaels early in 

 May, and in some seasons by the 27th of April, as in 1878, when several were seen on that date 

 about a spring-hole in the ice. At this time the ground was clothed with over a foot of snow, aud 

 the sea covered, as far as could be seen, with unbroken ice. During the next few days a terrible 

 storm of wind and snow swept over the country, but did these birds no harm, as was seen directly 

 after the storm ceased by their presence at the water-hole as usual. Mr. Dall records their arrival 

 on the I'ukon about May 1, and notes the fact of their descending that stream iu place of going 

 up the Y'ukon, as most of the geese do at this season. 



The birds arrive singly or in small parties on the coast, and directly after .scatter to their sum 

 mer haunts. At Nulato, Dall found them laying their eggs by May 21, but on the sea-coast May 

 30 is the earliest date I have of their eggs being taken. Dall states that they lay two eggs, but 



