WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 



T^HE White-fronted Geese from the Old and New 

 Worlds have been separated into a species and sub- 

 species, based solely upon size; the American birds 

 averaging a'little larger, something like one inch in total 

 length and in the tarsus and culmen about half an inch 

 each. As all critical remarks are reserved for the 

 Appendix it is not necessary here to discuss the wisdom 

 of separating these birds, but merely to state that as there 

 is no difference in their plumage, and the only way to 

 distinguish a specimen (if two forms are recognized) is 

 by the locality and the tape-line (and one cannot 

 always then be certain), I have not deemed these 

 distinctions as of sufficient importance to separate the 

 European and American examples, and in this book 

 have considered them as one species. The White- 

 fronted Goose is found generally throughout North 

 America from the Arctic Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, and 

 Cuba, and also occurs in Greenland. It is rare on the 

 Atlantic coast of the United States, occasional indi- 

 viduals having been taken as far south as Long Island, 

 but in its migrations it tends more to the westward, 

 is found in winter throughout the Mississippi Valley, and 

 is common in various parts of Texas. On the Pacific 

 coast it is very abundant from Alaska to Mexico. It 

 breeds throughout the Arctic regions from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific, nesting on the lower Anderson River from 

 its mouth to Fort Yukon; frequents the Siberian shore 

 of Behring Straits, is found on the Commander Islands, 



