APPENDIX. 455 



Family ANATID^. Genus CHEN. 



Subfamily ANSERINE. 



GREATER SNOW GOOSE. 



CHEN NIVALIS ( 



Anas nivalis, Forster, Phil. Trans. Ixii. p. 413 (1772). 



Chen hyperboreus (Pall.), Coues, Birds N.-West, p. 548 (1874 par tint) ; Newton, Diet. 

 Birds, p. 374 (1893 pariim). 



Chen hyperboreus nivalis (Forst.), Baird, Brewer, and Eidg., Water-B. N. Amer. ii. 

 p. 440 (1884) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs Non-indig. Brit. B. p. 148 (1894). 



Anser hyperboreus nivalis (Forst.), Seebohm, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 490 (1885). 



Chen nivalis (Forst.), Salvador!, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxvii. p. 86 (1895); Sharpe, 

 Handb. B. Gt. Brit. ii. p. 227 (1896); Sharpe, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, Nov. (1899). 



Geographical distribution. British: Providing the identification be 

 correct, and of this there seems to be little or no doubt, so far as I am able at 

 present to judge, the Greater Snow Goose (as recorded in Knowledge for 

 February, 1900), must now be included as a rare abnormal migrant to the 

 British Islands. Its claim to rank as "British" rests upon a single occur- 

 rence, though possibly some of the "Snow Geese" seen but not obtained 

 both in England and Ireland may have belonged to the larger of the two 

 races into which most scientific ornithologists agree in dividing them. It is a 

 somewhat remarkable coincidence, and one which has frequently been noticed in 

 the repeated appearance of abnormal migrants in certain areas, that Co. Mayo 

 can claim the first record of the Greater Snow Goose. This example appears to 

 have been shot near Belmullet in November, 1899. It was exhibited on behalf 

 of Mr. K. J. Ussher (a gentleman long known in connection with Irish orni- 

 thology) by Dr. Sharpe, at a meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club, held 

 on the 22nd of November of that year. Foreign : Northern portions of the 

 Arctogffian realm ; more southerly in winter. The large race of the Snow Goose 

 is only known to breed in the Hudson Bay territory, but its appearance in 

 North-eastern Asia, especially in Japan and China, and its visits to Greenland, 

 seems to suggest that its summer range is vastly more extended. If we cannot 

 at present exactly define the breeding area of this Goose, its wide extent is 

 certainly indicated by the flocks of this species that visit during winter various 

 localities in the Old World from Russia to Japan, and in the New World the 



