80 NOTES ON THE 
have materially diminished since the population has so greatly 
increased, and railroad connections with all of the other States 
have made it possible for hundreds of ‘‘crack-shots” to be on 
their haunts the moment the law allows them to be taken. 
Remoter sections submit them to less vernal persecutions, and 
there the numbers remain more nearly the same as those of 
several decades now gone. On their first arrival in any 
section, they spend much time on the wing reconnoitering, but 
soon become settled down to their work of eating, rather than 
flying. I suppose that there are sections where none of 
them ever breed, but I do not know of a county where I have 
been in summer, and had an opportunity to consult intelligent, 
observant residents, where I have not had good reason to 
believe that they were breeding to some extent at least. The 
country at large is eminently favorable to their nidification, 
and their habits during that season protect them from obser- 
vation, while the enforcement of the statutes by the State 
Sportingmen’s Club attend to their enforcement. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Tail of eighteen feathers; head, neck, bill and feet deep 
black; alarge triangular patch of white on the cheeks behind 
the eyes; the two of opposite sides broadly confluent beneath, 
but not extending to the rami of the lower jaw; a few whitish 
feathers on the lower eyelid; upper parts brown edged with 
paler; under parts light, with a tinge of purple-gray, some- 
times a shade of smoky brown; edges of the feathers paler; 
color of the body of the feathers though similar, becoming 
deeper on the sides, tibia, axillars, and inside of the wings; 
the gray of the belly passes gradually into white on the anal 
region and under coverts; upper tail coverts pure white; 
primary quills and rump are very dark blackish-brown; tail 
feathers black. 
Length, 35; wing, 18; tarsus, 3.40; commissure, 2.10. 
Habitat, North America generally. 
BRANTA CANADENSIS HUTCHINSIIT (Swartnson & 
RICHARDSON). (172a). 
HUTCHINS’S GOOSE. 
It is a difficult matter to convince the casually observing 
sportsman that there are really two varieties of the ‘‘Common 
Wild Goose,” while he will readily concede a considerable vari- 
ation in the size of different specimens of the species. The two 
seem to be thoroughly mingled in their autumnal migrations, 
with an immense preponderance of the Canadas, but in spring 
