76 BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



The eggs are yellowish-white ; the young fly about the close of August, and 

 by the middle of September both old and young wing their way southward. In 

 their breeding haunts, in the fur districts, they feed on various grasses and rushes, 

 also on insects, and are particularly fond, like so many northern breeding birds, 

 of the fruit of the crow-berry (Empetrum nigrumj. 



The bill is very stout, shorter than the head, and deep at the base, the lower 

 mandible displaying the lamellae, these are very prominent and large, and admirable 

 adapted for cutting off the tough grasses and sedges which form their chief food. 

 Seebohm says : " very little is known of the changes of plumage in this species ; 

 but young in first plumage are pale slate-grey on the head, neck, back, and 

 breast ; the scapulars and wing-coverts are darker grey, with pale edges, and the 

 rest of the plumage is white ; bill, legs, and feet, olive brown." These parts in 

 adults are red or orange-red ; nail white; irides hazel. Length overall, 30 to 32 

 inches ; wing, 1 5 to 1 8^. 



The first report (1892) issued by Prof. Henry F. Nachtrieb, State Zoologist 

 of the University of Minnesota, contains a valuable contribution by Dr. P. L. 

 Hatch, " Notes on the Birds of Minnesota." Speaking of the Snow-Goose he 

 says, " in its favourite localities, during the autumn especially, this species eclipses 

 any other of the Goose kind for numbers." One day, in October, 1884, in Grant 

 County, he arrived at the conclusion that within an area of five miles in diameter, 

 not less than five thousand Snow- Geese were concentrated. This was without 

 having recounted any flocks seen. The day was bright and sunny, and the various 

 flocks confined themselves to the same bodies of water, so that none were shot. 

 " The hunters call them ' White Brant.' The sight of one of those animate 

 clouds of floating snow, on which the dazzling rays of the sun are pouring on a 

 bright October day, can be neither described or forgotten. The Snow-Geese make 

 but a comparatively short stay in this latitude in the spring, but seek those most 

 northern by the i5th or aoth of April generally. -The measures of all which I 

 have obtained, and found in the markets, have placed them within the lesser 

 species as recognized by the Check List of the American Ornithological Union, not 

 one in ten exceeding twenty-seven inches in length, with the wing sixteen." Dr. 

 P. L. Hatch is of opinion that the Blue Goose, (Chen carulescensj , is beyond a 

 doubt the young of this species, the measurements essentially agreeing with theirs. 

 Whichever side of the question is advocated by ornithologists, each, individually, 

 is most positive as to the correctness of his deductions. Perhaps there is a middle 

 course out of the difficulty, and, as Mr. Howard Saunders suggests, the Snow- 

 Goose and Blue-winged Goose may be, respectively, coloured and white phases of 

 the same species, like those which exist in some of the American Herons. The 



