130 Kennakd, Ferruginous Stains on Waterfowl. L April 



River, principally about the delta of the Yukon River. The birds 

 are also found in East Siberia, and are said to winter among the 

 Aleutian Islands. Owing to the comparative rarity of this species, 

 I have been able to examine but thirty-three specimens. Of these, 

 seven were unstained; one taken on Bristol Bay, Alaska, on May 

 16, and the other six September birds, either juvenal, or adults 

 that had but recently finished their moult. The remaining birds 

 were all stained, those from East Siberia slightly so, while those 

 from Alaska were very badly discolored. 



I have been unable to obtain any data as to their stomach con- 

 tents; but Mr. F. Seymour Hersey tells me that they are marsh 

 feeders, reminding him in their habits of the Blue Goose, with the 

 feeding habits of which he is also familiar. These birds apparently 

 acquire this stain along the marshes of the west coast of Alaska, 

 and about the Yukon Delta, and presumably their feeding habits 

 must be similar to those of the genus Chen. 



Let us now turn to the Genus Branta, which seems to remain 

 unstained throughout the year. We know more about the range, 

 both winter and summer, of the Canada Goose, a stained specimen 

 of which is very exceptional, and we might logically argue that its 

 unstained condition throughout the year is owing to the fact that, 

 while its breeding range is enormous, it really is a bird of the interior, 

 breeding usually about the clean fresh-water ponds and lakes rather 

 than among the deltas and flats of the sea-coast; and wintering 

 generally either in the country west of the Mississippi, or on the 

 Atlantic Coast, and away from the muddy iron-bearing waters 

 of the Mississippi Delta. 



In what way, however, are we to account for the fact that the 

 Hutchins' Goose, which winters in California, together with the 

 Lesser Snow Goose, and which breeds in the Kowak Valley in 

 Alaska, and from the mouth of the Mackenzie east along the Arctic 

 shore to the Melville Peninsula, remains unstained, and in practi- 

 cally the same range, as that in which the Lesser Snow Goose often 

 becomes discolored? In this case, the haunts are approximately 

 the same. 



The Cackling Goose breeds along the west coast of Alaska from 

 Kotzebue Sound south across the Yukon Delta to the Alaska 

 Peninsula throughout approximately the same range as the Emperor 



