570 THE, BLUE GOOSE, 
No. 277. 
BLUE GOOSE. 
A. O. U. No. 169.1 Chen czrulescens (Linn.). 
Synonym.—BLvur SNow Goose. 
Description.—Adult im spring: Head and upper neck all around bluish 
white; lower neck all around and fore-breast rich sooty brown; below, color of 
breast, fading through brownish gray to white on belly, or to uniform bluish gray, 
better sustained on sides; above, color of hind neck, continued on upper back and 
scapulars, growing lighter posteriorly ; rump, tail, wing-coverts (including primary 
coverts), wing-quills basally, and edges of tertiaries, light bluish gray; termi- 
nal portion of wing-quills and tertiaries, centrally, blackish; bill showing 
prominent, rounded, black borders of open commisural space as in preceding 
species; feet (of dried specimens) dingy yellow. Adult im winter: Lighter; 
sooty brown replaced by dark bluish gray, and gray of wings, etc., correspondingly 
albescent. Jinmatuwre: Somewhat similar to adult in summer, but much more uni- 
form in coloration; head and neck all around dull sooty brown; the chin only 
white; remaining under parts uniform sooty gray, or darker on sides; back sooty 
brown, but lighter than neck; rump, tail, wing-coverts, etc., dull bluish gray. 
Length 26.50-30.00; av. of three Ohio specimens in O. S. U. Museum: wing 17.17 
(430.1) ; tail 6.60 (167.6) ; bill 2.43 (59.2); tarsus 3.46 (87.9); middle toe and 
claw 2.92 (74.2). 
Recognition Marks.—Large Brant size; head and upper neck white; remain- 
ing plumage sooty brown and light bluish gray, shading or contrasting; chiefly 
bluish gray and white in winter. 
Nest and Eggs unknown. 
General Range.—Interior of North America, breeding on eastern shores of 
Hudson Bay, and migrating south in winter through Mississippi Valley to Gulf 
coast; occasional on Atlantic Coast. 
Range in Ohio.—Occasional migrant. 
HERE is another of those Hyperborean strangers, of which we know al- 
most nothing, save that now and then one ventures upon our hospitality and is 
promptly betrayed. Dr. Wheaton was the first to record the species for Ohio. 
having identified two in Columbus in 1875. On October 28, 1896, a pair 
were taken on the water-works reservoir at Oberlin; and other records have 
since been made. 
Samuel Hearne, writing more than a century ago, clearly distinguished 
this species from the Snow Goose (C. hyperborea nivalis) but later writers, 
including Audubon, fell into the mistake of regarding it as the young of the 
other species, and the Blue Goose was for a long time lost to view. During 
migrations the two species are not infrequently found together, and the mis- 
take was not unnatural. 
“By Indian report the great breeding ground of the c@rulescens is the 
country lying in the interior from the northeast point of Labrador. Exten- 
sive swamps and impassable bogs prevail there, and the Geese incubate in the 
most solid and driest tufts dispersed over the morasses, safe from the approach 
of man or any other than a winged enemy” (Brewer). 
