OP THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 325 



Family ANATID^E. Genus ANSER. 



Subfamily AN SERIN JE. 



WHITE=FRONTED GOOSE. 



AN SEE ALBIFEONS (Scopoli). 



Branta albifrons, Scop. Ann. I. Hist. Nat. p. 69 (1769). 



Anser albifrons (Scop.), Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 609 (1852) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vi. p. 

 375, pi. 414 (1878) ; Yarrell, Brit. B. ed. 4, iv. p. 261 (1885) ; Seebohm, Hist. Brit. 

 B. iii. p. 505 (1885); Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. pt. x. (1889); Dixon, Nests and 

 Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 151 (1894) ; Salvadori, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxvii. p. 92 

 (1895) ; Seebohm, Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 32, pi. 10 (1896) ; Sharpe, Handb. B. 

 Gt. Brit. ii. p. 230 (1896). 



Geographical distribution British: The White-fronted Goose is a 

 winter visitor, local in distribution, and much more abundant some seasons than 

 others. It is found in small numbers on the east coast of Scotland, but is for the 

 most part very rare in the Shetlands, and is even more local on the west, where its 

 chief strongholds are the Outer Hebrides, notably Islay. It is rare on the east coast 

 of England and in Wales, but much more common in some seasons remarkably 

 abundant on the south and south-west. It is commonest in Ireland, its principal 

 haunts being in the north-west, west, and south. Foreign : Palaearctic region ; 

 some parts of the Oriental region in winter. It is an accidental visitor to the 

 Faroes and Iceland, but breeds regularly in Arctic Eussia and across Siberia to 

 Behring Strait. It passes the coasts of West Europe, the river valleys of Eussia 

 and Siberia, and Turkestan on migration. It winters off the coast of France, and 

 occasionally wanders as far south as Gibraltar, Italy, and Transylvania. Other 

 parties of migrants crossing inland routes winter in Greece, South Eussia, Asia 

 Minor, North-east Africa, the Persian coasts of the Caspian, and North-west 

 India. In the far east the migrants follow the coast as in the west, and winter 

 in Japan and China as far south as Shanghai. 



Allied forms. Anser erythropus. The small form of the White-fronted 

 Goose, a "British" species, and dealt with fully in the following chapter. A. 

 gambeli, an inhabitant of Arctic America as far north as lat. 72, ranging from 

 Alaska to Greenland, wintering in the United States as far south as the Gulf 

 of Mexico. The Nearctic form of the White-fronted Goose, perhaps only 



