BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY. I47 



have the same trick. The latter are, however, much larger and their tails are 

 relatively and also absolutely shorter. Apparently all the birds seen or shot 

 here in the autumn are in a plumage similar to that of the immature bird with 

 dark upper and grayish white lower part of the head. This marking can be 

 made out at a considerable distance with a good glass. The bright ruddy tints 

 and pure whites of the full-plumaged birds I have never seen at this season. 



70 [169] Chen hyperborea (Pall.). 

 Lesser Snow Goose. 



Very rare transient visitor in the autumn. 



There is a specimen in the Peabody Academy, taken at Lynn Beach in 

 1886, and mounted by Vickary. A male was taken at Ipswich on October 26th, 

 1896, by a local gunner and is now in the collection of Mr. William Brewster.^ 



Mr. W. H. Vivian, who shot a Whistling Swan, in 1902, off Ipswich Beach, 

 told me in December, 1903, that some two weeks before, or in November, 1903, 

 he saw a flock of about fifty white birds resting on the beach at Ipswich with 

 their heads concealed in their feathers. He thought at first they were Gulls, but 

 they got up and flew off honking and he saw that they were white Geese. He 

 fired at them without effect. A few weeks later I talked with Mr. G. Loring 

 Woodbury at Ipswich about birds seen and shot. He volunteered the informa- 

 tion that about the last of November he had seen, nearly a mile off at the beach 

 a flock of forty or more white Geese "as white as Gulls." As these two stories 

 correspond so closely and as both my informants are reliable men, there seems 

 no doubt but that a large flock of Snow Geese wandered this way in November, 

 1903. Mr. Woodbury also stated that his father shot a Snow Goose at West 

 Gloucester about forty years ago. 



[169a] Chen hyperborea nivalis (Forst.). Greater Snow Goose. Although there are no 

 means for substantiating the statement, it is probable that this subspecies was found along the 

 coast in the early days of the County, but has long since been extirpated. 



1 Wm. Brewster : Auk, vol. 14, p. 207, 1897. 



