1917] Swarth-Bryant: White-fronted Goose in California 217 
oy 
specimens in every particular. The following details of this bird 
can be used in comparison with our data: Sex, female; total length, 
685 mm.; wing, 417; tail feathers, 124; bill, from tip to frontal 
feathering, 51; tarsus, 78; middle toe with claw, 76; weight, 634 
pounds (fat); naked eye-ring, dark brownish gray. 
It is, of course, uncertain whether these measurements were taken 
in the same manner.as our own, but, disregarding this possibility, it 
will be seen from the figures given that the total leneth accords with 
that noted by us for the smaller American race, which we eall albifrons, 
while the others are all intermediate between the two. Stejneger, 
with his customary painstaking accuracy, earefully records the color 
of the naked eye-ring, most fortunately so, as it appears to be a valu- 
able character. The fact that it is dark brownish gray in the 
specimen in question seems, with little doubt, to stamp the bird as 
Anser a. albifrons. 
On the whole, while concurring with this author that his Bering 
Island white-fronted goose agrees with average North American birds 
in its characteristics, we believe it belongs to the smaller, apparently 
the more common, of the two American races. Its slightly greater 
size, as compared with most European A. albifrons, is in accord with 
Alphéraky’s finding of an inerease in the size of birds from eastern 
Asia, as compared with European specimens. 
All of the examples of tule geese at hand came from a limited 
region in the Sacramento Valley, in the vicinity of Butte Creek and 
Butte Slough, in Sutter County. While the bird is apparently of 
fair abundance in this region in winter, we have little data demen- 
strating its presence at any other point in the state. In the extensive 
series of A. albifrons albifrons in the collections of the Museum of 
Vertebrate Zoology and of the California Academy of Sciences, all 
taken in the vicinity of Los Banos, Mereed County, in the San Joaquin 
Valley, there is not a single example of the larger bird. There is, 
however, a persistent rumor among market-hunters of the Los Banos 
district to the effect that a large form of white-fronted goose exists 
and has been killed there. In a letter received from Mr. George 
Neale, the statement is made that Mr. A. W. Stuart, of Grand Island, 
once killed two large gray geese, ‘‘as large as honkers,’’ at Maine 
Prairie, Solano County. 
In the Sacramento Valley, market-hunters and the sportsmen of 
the gun clubs alike affirm the existence of two races of the white- 
fronted goose, differing in appearance, habits and call notes. It is 
