THE SPECIES OF BEAN-GEESE. 41 



Then there remains another character, the number of teeth on the 

 edges of the mandibles. The teeth, I believe, vary greatly in number 

 and are, moreover, so difficult to count that no two persons will arrive 

 at the same result. I attach no importance whatever to the number of 

 the teeth. 



It may be gathered from the above remarks that the characters 

 for the identification of a species of Bean-Goose are really very few. 

 There is, first, the size and general outline of the bill as seen from the 

 side. This ought to suffice. Corroborative characters are : length of 

 wing in a sexed bird, and the colour of the pale part of the bill in life. 



When, therefore, a sportsman has shot a Bean-Goose and he has 

 neither time nor inclination to skin the whole bird, he should preserve 

 the head. He should, if possible, also note the sex and the colour of 

 the bill, and, in the event of his preserving the head only, the length of 

 the wing. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



I wrote this paper more than a year ago, and its publication has 

 been delayed owing to difficulties connected with the reproduction of 

 the plate. In the meantime an English translation of Mr. Alpheraky's 

 work on " Russian Geess " has appeared. The translation, entitled 

 "The Geese of Europe and Asia, " does not, as might be expected, 

 enlarge the scope of the book. It is still a monograph of Russian Geese 

 as found in the Russian Empire, and most of the information given by 

 the author is from Russian sources. 



Twenty-two species of Geese, afterwards finally reduced to twenty, 

 are treated of in 195 pages and the book is well illustrated by 24 plates 

 executed by Mr. Frohawk. The book is of quarto size. Notwith- 

 standing the large amount of space devoted to each species, the author 

 does not give us the full synonymy, but refers us in his preface to Count 

 Salvadori's British Museum Catalogue of the Ducks (Vol. XXVII), 

 a very inconvenient course to adopt, and for which there is little or no 

 justification. 



The Bean-Geese naturally occupy a considerable amount of 

 Mr. Alpheraky's attention and space in his book, but with, I am sorry 

 to say, little success. He has rendered the study of these birds more 

 difficult in future by suppressing one species and ignoring r.roth(r.r s 

 I have shewn in my remarks further on. There is reason to suppose 



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