V °i899 VI ] Elliot, Some Genera and Species. 220) 



White Swans. It is, therefore, to be hoped that the Committee, 

 after due consideration of the above presentation of the case, 

 may decide to relegate Olor to its true position of a synonym, 

 and reinstate Cygnus as the proper genus for our Swans. 



The genus Exanthemops, instituted by me in 1868 for Anser 

 rossi Cassin, has, according to the report in the last number of 

 ' The Auk,' been accepted by the Committee on Nomenclature 

 as a subgenus. The reasons which influenced this decision are 

 not given, yet it would be interesting to learn what they were. 

 Ross's Goose is a rare bird, comparatively speaking, and few 

 collections, even those of great museums, possess more than 

 two or three examples, and opinions founded upon such scant 

 material are very apt to be misleading if characters fully devel- 

 oped are only to be best appreciated in the adult. Those on 

 which I relied when founding the genus were the following : 

 the wart-like excrescences, which increase in size and number 

 as the bird advances in years, until they completely cover the 

 base of the bill, and extend nearly to the nostril; the absence 

 of gap at the commissure, so conspicuous a feature in the bills 

 of all other Snow Geese, no black space visible, also a clearly 

 discernible feature in the species of Chen, and hardly any bevel- 

 ling present and consequent absence of the grinning expression, 

 so remarkable a feature in its allies. Now it seems to me that 

 these are structural features not found in any other species of 

 Goose, and entitle their possessor to a distinct generic rank. 

 If one takes the excrescences on the bill as the sole character 

 as to what constitutes the genus and forms his opinion solely 

 upon dried skins, he is very apt to reject it as unfounded, 

 because these peculiar ' warts ' dry up to a great extent, indeed 

 in some cases almost disappear after death and leave but little 

 evidence of their previous size or of the extent of bill they 

 covered. Hearne, who was the first observer to record the 

 appearance of this bird in life, says the bill " at the base is 

 studded round with little knobs about the size of peas, but more 

 remarkably so in the male." Voy. North. Ocean, p. 442 (1795). 

 This is a character similar to those on which the genera Flec- 

 tropterus Cairina, Sarcidiornis and others are established and 

 accepted. Dried skins do not exhibit differences that are mainly 



