68 YOUNG OF THE SNOW GOOSE. 



Clark's exploring party, near the mouth of the Columbia river, which 

 were probably the same as the present species.* Mr. Pennant says 

 " they are taken by the Siberians in nets, under which they are decoyed 

 by a person covered with a white skin, and crawling on all-fours ; when 

 others driving them, these stupid birds mistaking him for their leader, 

 follow him, Avhen they are entangled in the nets, or led into a kind of 

 pound made for the purpose !" We might here with propriety add — 

 This wants confirmation. 



♦ ANAS ETPERBOREA. 



YOUNG OF THE SNOW GOOSE. 



[Plate LXIX. Fig. 5, Female.] 



Bean Goose? Lath. Syn. iii., p. 464. — White-fronted Goose? Ibid, iii., p. 463. — 

 Arct. Zool. No. 474. Blue-winged Goose? Lath. Syn. iii., p. 469.t 



The full plumaged perfect male bird of this species has already been 

 figured in the preceding plate, and I now hazard a conjecture, founded 

 on the best examination I could make of the young bird here figured, 

 comparing it with the descriptions of the different accounts above 

 referred to, that the Avhole of them have been taken from the various 

 individuals of the present, in a greater or lesser degree of approach to 

 its true and perfect colors. 



These birds pass along our coasts, and settle in our rivers, every 

 autumn ; among thirty or forty there are seldom more than six or eight 

 pure white, or old birds. The rest vary so much that no two are exactly 

 alike ; yet all bear the most evident marks in the particular structure 

 of their bills, &c., of being the same identical species. A gradual 

 change so great, as from a bird of this color to one of pure white, must 

 necessarily produce a number of varieties, or differences in the appear- 

 ance of the plumage, but the form of the bill and legs remains the same, 

 and any peculiarity in either is the surest means we have to detect a 

 species under all its various appearances. It is therefore to be regretted, 

 that the authors above referred to in the synonymes, have paid so little 

 attention to the singular conformation of the bill ; for even in their 



* Gass's Journal, p. 161. 



t Anas ccerulescens, Gmel. Syst. i , p. 513, No. 12. — Ind. Orn. p. 836, No. 13. 

 Blue-winged Goose, Lath. Sup. ii., p. 346, No. 8. — V Oye sanvage de la Baye de 

 Hudson, Briss. vi , p. 275, No. 5. — L' Oye des Esquimaux, Buff, ix., p. 80. 



