MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 537 



No. XXXI.— ON THE INDIAN SPECIES OF BEAN-GOOSE. 



In his very interesting article on certain species of Bean-Geese in the last 

 number of our Journal Mr. Eugene Oates has made some remarks which seem 

 to call for a reply from me. 



His suggestions that I mistook specimens of the Small "White-fronted Goose 

 (Anser erythropus) for the Pink-footed Goose (Anser brachyrhynchus) of course 

 requires no answer, as Mr. Oates would have seen had he re-read his own article, 

 for in this (p. 44, line 5) he quotes me as writing " nail black. " Mr. Oates 

 knows the Dwarf Goose (4. erythrcpus) never has this. It is rather like accus- 

 ing a man of mistaking a Blackbird for a Jay. Mr. Oates has, however, 

 shewn that all my birds but one were probably not bruchyrhynchus, but at the 

 same time I am quite positive as to their belonging to the section of Bean- 

 Goose, which have brilliant pink on the bills and equally brilliant pink feet. 



It is true that my descriptions of the bills of my birds omitted any mention 

 of the black which was at the base of the bill. The reason for this was that 

 when my notes were written it was generally supposed that a pink-billed Bean- 

 Goose was to be found in India, and the key to this bird w .s that it had a 

 black nail to the bill and no black bars on the head. Given these two character- 

 istics the bird was a Bean-Goose, and as there was practically very little 

 literature on the subject and that little all referred to brachyrhynchus as our 

 Indian form, I accepted mine as being of the species and merely mentioned 

 what might be considered the defining points, viz. the pink colouration of the 

 bill combined with the black nail. That my description was sufficient to endorse 

 my finding, is shewn by Mr. Oates himself in his " Manual of the Game-birds 

 of India " (Yol. II, p. 67), in which he notes on my description of the supposed 

 brachyrhynchus " his remarks and measurements fully sustain this identification 

 of the species, " thus shewing that at that time he considered it ample for the 

 purpose of identification and laid no stress on the absence of mention of black 

 at the base of the bill. 



As a matter of fact, thanks to Mr. Oates' further researches, I cannot but 

 conclude that the identifications of all my birds, except the Cachar one, was 

 wrong after all, for though the bill agrees in colouration with that of brachy- 

 rhynchus, it is far too big for that bird, and I now consider that the bird shot 

 by Mr. Moore in Dibrugarh and the two obtained by my men in the same 

 district are all Anser mtddendorfii and my notes on these must now be read as 

 referring to this species and not to brachyrhynchus. As legards the goose shot 

 by my collector in Cachar, this must, I think, still stand as brachyrhynchus for 

 the bill at front only measured V&" and is much too small for that of midden- 

 dorffi. 



I cannot agree with Mr. Oates' remarks as to the constancy of the size of the 

 bill in the various species of Bean Geese and am afraid that as bigger series are 

 obtained we shall get a greater variation in dimensions ; he already allows half 

 an inch variation in the larger species and there is the full half -inch difference 

 between the specimens of Middendorft's goose shot in the Irawaddy and that 



