YOUNG OF THE SNOW GOOSE. 69 



description of the Snow Goose, neither that nor the internal peculiari- 

 ties, are at all mentioned. 



The length of the bird represented in our plate, was twenty-eighi 

 inches, extent four feet eight inches ; bill gibbous at the sides both above 

 and below, exposing the teeth of the upper and lower mandibles, and 

 furnished with a nail at the tip on both ; the whole being of a light 

 reddish purple or pale lake, except the gibbosity, which is black, and 

 the two nails, which are of a pale light blue ; nostril pervious, an oblong 

 slit, placed nearly in the middle of the upper mandible ; irides dark 

 brown ; whole head and half of the neck white ; rest of the neck and 

 breast, as well as upper part of the back, of a purplish brown, darkest 

 where it joins the white ; all the feathers being finely tipped with pale 

 brown ; whole wing coverts very pale ash, or light lead color, primaries 

 and secondaries black ; tertials long, tapering, centered with black, edged 

 with light blue, and usually fall over the wing; scapulars cinereous 

 brown ; lower parts of the back and rump of the same light ash as 

 the wing coverts ; tail rounded, blackish, consisting of sixteen feathers 

 edged and tipped broadly with white ; tail coverts white ; belly and 

 vent whitish, intermixed with cinereous ; feet and legs of the same lake 

 color as the bill. 



This specimen was a female ; the tongue was thick and fleshy, armed 

 on each side with thirteen strong bony teeth, exactly similar in appear- 

 ance as well as in number, to those on the tongue of the Snow Goose ; 

 the inner concavity of the upper mandible was also studded with rows 

 of teeth. The stomach was extremely muscular, filled with some vege- 

 table matter, and clear gravel. 



With this another was shot, differing considerably in its markings, 

 having little or no white on the head, and being smaller ; its general 

 color dark brown intermixed with pale ash, and darker below, but evi- 

 dently of the same species with the other. 



