Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 393 



that the young M. arvensis had in some cases only a very 

 narrow line of white feathers round the base of the bill, but 

 I suppose that this was greatly due to the early season when 

 our shooting used to take place (the end of September 

 and beginning of October, old style), and that the same birds, 

 two or three months later, would have this white line round 

 the base of the bill more developed. Since my book was 

 printed, I have had the opportunity of examining more speci- 

 mens of young M. arvensis, some of which had, while some 

 had not, this white feathering round the base of the bill. 



That M. sibiricus may, after all, not be a race of M. arvensis, 

 but a distinct species, I am ready to allow, although I do not 

 see any serious reason for taking this view, and I have nothing 

 to say against restoring to it the name middendorffi (although 

 Severtzov has described his middendorffi after a typical 

 M. arvensis, as proved by his collection), but I decidedly 

 deny the possibility of M. sibiricus (= middendorffi) being a 

 geographical variety of M. segetum ! The entire form of the 

 bill, all its proportions, the slenderness of the maxilla, and 

 even the number of teeth do not for one moment allow of 

 such a possibility. If such a fact could be admitted, all that 

 Naumann and I have written on the bills of M. segetum and 

 M. arvensis would be completely upset, and there would not 

 remain a single character by which M. sibiricus could be 

 distinguished from M. segetum serriroshis, though the birds 

 are quite distinct species, as anyone having a series of both 

 of them before him for comparison would easily see, if he 

 only would take the trouble to pay attention to what I have 

 said in my book about them. 



At first I found it no easy matter to ascertain these 

 differences in the bills of the Melanonyches, but I can now 

 tell almost exactly the number of teeth of any given specimen 

 of Goose of this group after a very superficial examination 

 of the bill, and I think that this fact does, after all, prove 

 something, and that it cannot be explained by sheer guess- 

 work. But I fully realise that for a naturalist who has not 

 skins of the different Melanonyches before him for comparison 

 it would be almost hopeless to decide the matter, and that no 



