THE EMPEROR GOOSE 
BY EDWARD W. NELSON 
Among all the wild geese that make their summer home in the 
far North—both in the Old and the New World—the emperor goose 
is one of the least known and the most beautiful. Its snowy white 
head, dusky throat, satiny gray body, on which each feather is marked 
by a black crescent and white margin, and the brilliant orange 
feet, make a strikingly handsome combination of colors. When the 
males first arrive on their breeding-grounds in spring, the beauty of 
their plumage is remarkable, but much of its satiny luster vanishes 
as the season advances. 
After careful examination I found the adult males and females 
to be absolutely indistinguishable. A fine adult female, taken at the 
Yukon Mouth on May 22, had its iris hazel; lower mandible dark 
horn-color, with a white spot on each side of the rami; membrane 
about the nares livid-blue, upper surface of bill pale purplish or fleshy 
white; edge of nail dark horn-color; rest of the nail white; inside of 
mouth mottled black and white; feet and legs a bright, rich, orange- 
yellow. 
Although the breeding-range of the emperor goose covers parts 
of two continents, yet it is perhaps more restricted in its territory 
than any other northern species of goose. Its summer home lies 
along the coasts on both sides of Bering Strait, but, as we know, the 
vast majority of the race breed in Alaska, mainly on the islands of 
the lower part of the Yukon Delta, and thence southward on the low 
marshy tundras to Cape Vancouver and nearly to the mouth of the 
Kuskokwim River. A few stragglers nest north of the mouth of the 
Yukon. Considerable numbers also breed on St. Lawrence Island, 
where I have seen many flocks in June. They also rear their young 
on the shores of Chukchi Land, in extreme northeastern Asia. We 
saw them coasting along the beach near East Cape on the Siberian 
side of Bering Strait the first of July, and they must have been breed¬ 
ing in that district. When Nordenskiold wintered at Tapkan, on the 
Arctic coast of Siberia northwest of Bering Strait, he noted the arrival 
of these birds near his winter cpiarters as soon as the snow left the 
tundra in spring. This is the most western record we have of them 
in Siberia, but they no doubt range still farther. Their main winter¬ 
ing place appears to be on the Pacific, or southern, side of the Penin¬ 
sula of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Aleuts know them as 
“beach geese,” owing to their persistent occupation of the seashore. 
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