YOUNG OP THE SNOW GOOSE. 286 



mation of the bill; for even in their description of the Snow 

 Goose, neither that nor the internal peculiarities, are at all men- 

 tioned. 



The length of the bird represented in our plate, was twenty- 

 eight inches, extent four feet eight inches; bill gibbous at the 

 sides both above and below, exposing the teeth of the upper 

 and lower mandibles, and furnished with a nail at the tip on 

 both; the whole being of a light reddish purple or pale lake, 

 except the gibbosity, which is black, and the two nails, which 

 are of a pale light blue; nostril pervious, an oblong slit, placed 

 nearly in the middle of the upper mandible; irides dark brown; 

 whole head and half of the neck white; rest of the neck and breast, 

 as well as upper part of the back, of a purplish brown, darkest 

 where it joins the white; all the feathers being finely tipt with pale 

 brown; whole wing coverts very pale ash, or light lead colour, pri- 

 maries and secondaries black; tertials long, tapering, centred with 

 black, edged with light blue, and usually fall over the wing; 

 scapulars cinereous brown; lower parts of the back and rump 

 of the same light ash as the wing coverts; tail rounded, black- 

 ish, consisting of sixteen feathers edged and tipt broadly with 

 white; tail coverts white; belly and vent whitish, intermixed 

 with cinereous; feet and legs of the same lake colour as the bill. 



This specimen was a female; the tongue was thick and fleshy, 

 armed on each side with thirteen strong bony teeth, exactly 

 similar in appearance as well as in number, to those on the 

 tongue of the Snow Goose; the inner concavity of the upper 

 mandible was also studded with rows of teeth. The stomach 

 was extremely muscular, filled with some vegetable matter, and 

 clear gravel. 



With this another was shot, differing considerably in its 

 markings, having little or no white on the head, and being 

 smaller, its general colour dark brown intermixed with pale 

 ash, and darker below, but evidently of the same species with 

 the other. 



