178 The Goose-like Birds 



and the bill and the legs bright rosy red. It is usually seen in small parties, 

 though occasionally in flocks of several hundred individuals, and when dis- 

 turbed has a "loud, musical, trumpeting cry in three notes." The nest, 

 usually placed away from water, is built on the ground, of mud, weeds, and 

 grasses, and the large, shining white eggs are eight or nine in number. 



The typical Geese the true Geese par excellence belong, to the number of 

 a dozen or more species, to the genus Anser, and are characterized by having the 

 plumage brownish, the feathers of the back, etc., with lighter tips, and the lower 

 parts pale brownish gray or grayish white, with the upper and under tail-coverts 

 pure white. There is usually very little if any black on the head and the tail- 

 feathers are sixteen in number. Only two forms are found in North America. 



Gray-lag Goose. The common species of western Europe is the Gray-lag 

 Goose (A. anser), a bird about thirty-five inches in length, supposed to be the 

 original from which the domestic breeds have sprung. It has the lower back 

 almost gray in color and no conspicuous white on the forehead. The Gray-lag 

 does not go as far north to breed as do many of the Geese, and is the only species 

 nesting at the present time in Great Britain. Of its habits, Mr. Hudson says : 

 "The Gray-lag Goose pairs for life', and is gregarious, but is said not to associate 

 with Geese of other species. It feeds on grass and young shoots, and in autumn 

 on grain, and spends nearly the whole day in feeding, and at dark resorts to some 

 level open space to roost, where it is almost impossible to approach within gun- 

 shot of the flock, owing to its watchfulness. The Gray-lag makes a large nest of 

 weeds and grass, lined with moss, and lays six eggs, sometimes a larger number. 

 During incubation the gander keeps guard over his mate, and afterward assists 

 her in rearing the young. These are led back to the nest every evening by the 

 goose, and sleep under her wing." In Siberia the place is taken by a slightly 

 larger form (.4. rubrirostris], distinguished mainly by having the base of the 

 upper mandible bright red. This bird spends the winter in northern India and 

 southern China. 



The White-fronted Goose (A.albifrons], a smaller species than the last, spends 

 the summer in northern Europe and Siberia and possibly Greenland, and in 

 winter comes to southern Europe, India, and China. It may be known by the 

 white on the forehead and at the base of the upper mandible, and by the orange- 

 yellow bill, legs, and feet. It is pretty generally distributed overthe entire Arctic 

 region of the Old World, breeding near the coast-line of the Arctic Ocean, and 

 also on the larger rivers and bays. The American White-fronted or Laughing 

 Goose (-4. albifrons gambeli) is almost exactly similar to the Old World form 

 except in size, being uniformly larger. It breeds in the high Arctic regions and 

 in winter spreads over all the southern portions of North America, being, how- 

 ever, most abundant in the western and central portions and rare in the eastern. 

 It has been found very abundantly along the Yukon, nesting in communities, 

 and laying six to ten eggs in a depression in the sand without any kind of a nest 

 or lining. Mr. MacFarlane, chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, reports 

 having taken about one hundred nests in Arctic America between the years 

 1 86 1 and 1865. Like the nests along the Yukon, they were a mere cavity in the 



