HYPERBOREA. 

 YOUNG OF THE SNOW GOOSE. 

 [Plate LXIX. Fig. 5. Female.] 



Bean Goose? LATH. Syn. in, p. 464. White fronted Goose? Ibid. 

 in, p, 463. Jlrct. fiool. JVb. 474. Blue winged Goose? LATH. 

 Syn. in, p. 469. PEALE'S Museum, No. 2636,* 



THE full plumaged perfect male bird of this species has already 

 been figured in the preceding plate, and I now hazard a conjec- 

 ture, founded on the best examination I could make of the young 

 bird here figured, comparing it with the descriptions of the dif- 

 ferent accounts above referred to, that the whole of them have 

 been taken from the various individuals of the present, in a 

 greater or lesser degree of approach to its true and perfect co- 

 lours. 



These birds pass along our coasts, and settle in our rivers, 

 every autumn; among thirty or forty there are seldom more 

 than six or eight pure white, or old birds. The rest vary so 

 much that no two are exactly alike; yet all bear the most evi- 

 dent marks in the particular structure of their bills, &c. of be- 

 ing the same identical species. A gradual change so great, as 

 from a bird of this colour to one of pure white, must necessari- 

 ly produce a number of varieties, or differences in the appear- 

 ance of the plumage, but the form of the bill and legs remain the 

 same, and any peculiarity in either is the surest mean we have 

 to detect a species under all its various appearances. It is there- 

 fore to be regretted, that the authors above referred to in the 

 synonyms, have paid so little attention to the singular confor- 



*Jnas cccnilescens, GMEL. St/sf. i, p. 513, No. 12. Ind. Orn. p. 836, No. 13. 

 Blue winged Goose, LATH. Sup. 11, p. 346, No. 8. L'Ot/e sauvage de la Baye de 

 , BRIBS. vi, p. 275, No. S.VOye des Esquimaux, HUFF, ix, p. 80. 



