150 ORNITHOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS. 



No specimeus of this swan were i)rocured, but I ideutifietl several 

 heads hi Petropaulski as beloDging- to the Hooper, which, in fact, is the 

 common species of this region. During the winter 1882-'83, swans 

 were repeatedly observed on Bering Island, but as they were extremely 

 shy none were obtained, nor was it even possible to get so near to them 

 as to be able to identify the si)ecies with absolute certainty. I have 

 little doubt, however, that they belonged to the species in question, and 

 not to the following. 



The first ones were observed on October 15, 1882, when a flock of six 

 individuals Mas seen flying over the village, Bering Island, from west 

 to east. Two seem to have passed the winter at Severnij, where they 

 were observed on January 10 and March 18, 1883. Another was re- 

 ported from Zapadnij, April 24, 1883. 



62. Olor columbianus (Okd). 



1815. — Anas cohon'biatius Oed iu Guthrie's Geogr. 2d Anier. ed. (p. 319). — Olor c. TuR- 

 ^M•:R, Auk, ld8.'). p. l.')?. 



1831. — Cyrjnm ameruann^ Shakpless iu Donghty's Cab. Nat. Hist., I, No. 8, p. 1S5. — 

 Dall & 13AXX1ST., Tr. Cbicag. Acad., I, IdGLI, p. 293.— Dall, Avif. Alent. Isl., 

 wcot Uual., p. 6 (1^74). -Olor a. Nel.sox, Cruise Corwiu, p. 92 (1883). 



On November 3, 1882, one of the natives of Beriug Island brought me 

 a youug swan, shot at Fedoskija, which puzzled ijje not a little. 



Accordiug to all information, the two species of swans of Eastern Asia 

 should be Olarci/fpius und 0/or&e?rM//,andthespecimen, therefore, ought 

 to belong to one of them. The young of these species have been con- 

 sidered difficult to distinguish, but in my "Monograph of the Cygninae" 

 {Pr. U. S. NaT. Mus., Stat. 1882, p. 174 seqv.) I had pointed out a character, 

 which I was now going to try. A close examination showed me that 

 my specimen, a young male, in its gray plumage, was just a little larger 

 than the largest 0. bewicMi ever measured by me (more than twenty), 

 being much smaller, however, than young 0. cygnus (= musicus) of the 

 same age. But, while agreeing better with beicickH as to size, the bill 

 was essentially that of 0. cygnus, not high at the base, with nearly per- 

 pendicular ^>roce6s?<s maxUlaris of the nasal bone, as iu the former, but 

 rather depressed and with the said processus decidedly oblique, as in 

 the latter. In addition to these features the bird was remarkable for 

 having the feet colored white; not light gray, but decidedly white. I 

 at first fancied it to be a smaller eastern representative of 0. cygnus, 

 but heads of adults of the latter from Kamtschatka convinced me that 

 eastern specimens of the Hooper are as typical as those from Europe. 



