524 THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 



319. Snow Goose [SCHNEEGA.NS]. 

 ANSER HYPERBOREUS, Pallas. 1 



Anser hyperboreus. Naumann, xi. 213. 



Snow Goose. Dresser, vi. 413. 



Oie Jiyperboree. Temminck, Manuel, ii. 816, iv. 516. 



Although no example of this Goose has as yet been shot on 

 Heligoland, several undoubted cases of its occurrence on the island 

 have been brought under my notice. In the first of these instances 

 a number of gunners saw, in the course of the severe winter of 

 1844-45, nine quite white Geese with black flight-feathers, like 

 Gannets (Sula alba), flying in a row past the eastern point of the 

 shore ; the same phenomenon was observed on the 19th of Decem- 

 ber 1847. On the next occasion, two gunners called Dahn, father 

 and son, while out lobster-catching at the beginning of May 1880, 

 saw from their boat four white Geese, with orange-coloured beaks 

 and feet, flying close past them ; and on the 12th of the same month, 

 they saw three others under similar circumstances. Unfortunately 

 they were, in both cases, unprovided with guns, and the birds flew 

 past them at a very short range. Finally, on the 25th of December 

 of the same year, some little boys found a perfectly white Goose, 

 with black wings and orange beak and feet, sitting on the Upper 

 Plateau; the bird in question displayed so little shyness that the boys 

 were able to throw clods of earth at it from quite close quarters. 



The breeding range of the Snow Goose extends from the Hud- 

 son Bay country in Arctic America to Alaska (Natural History of 

 Alaslca, Signal Service, U.S. Army, vol. ii. p. 138), and further 

 westward to northern Asia, where the bird was met with during the 

 Vega Expedition on the coast of the Tchuktchee Peninsula on the 

 10th, 14th and 15th of June (Vega Expedition, Palrnen). Un- 

 doubtedly these birds were engaged migrating to the area of 

 land which we have already mentioned as probably existing be- 

 tween eastern Asia and the Pole. 



320. Brent Goose [BERNIKEL-GANS]. 

 ANSER TORQUATUS, Frisch.2 



Heligolandish : Radde-Guss. Name for Brent Goose. 

 Anser torquatus. Naumann, xi. 393. 

 Brent Goose. Dresser, vi. 389. 



Oie cravant. Temminck, Manuel, ii. 824, iv. 522. 



Isolated examples of this Goose appear here every winter. 

 During a long spell of severe frost, flights of from fifteen to twenty 



1 Chen Jiyperboreus, (Pall.). - Bernida brenta (Pall.). 



