603 



ON BEAN-GEESE 



BY 



S. A. Buturlin, F.M.B.O.U. 



In No. 1, Vol. XVII of the " Journal of the Bombay Natural His~ 

 tory Society," Mr. Eugene W. Oates has published an interesting papej 

 on the spaj'ie? of Bean-Geese, with a coloured plate, stating, that his 

 paper may be defective in some respects from lack of material and 

 information. Having not long ago devoted considerable pains to & 

 study of this difficult group in the field and cabinet, may I be per- 

 mitted to add here some notes on it ? 



Mr. Oates figures (Fig. 7) and describes the bill of Anser serri 

 rostris, Swinh. as being pinkish-red on its pale parts. Now, I hav 

 shot A. serrirostris — indeed scores and scores of it — an the valley of 

 Kolyma, N. E. Siberia, from their first arrival, 22nd May 1905 (fully 

 three weeks before the fathom-thick ice of the great river began to, 

 move) to 23rd September, when cold, snow and ice drove the last one 

 away to milder climates. I have seen numbers of them alive caught 

 by natives when moulting, and always recorded the colours on the 

 spot. They all have the pale preapical band of the bill yellow (shades 

 of chrome-yellow), as they were quite correctly figured in Mr. Alphera- 

 ky's work " The Geese of Europe and Asia " (London, Rowland Ward, 

 1905, pi. 23.) In the case of some of the birds, shot through the head 

 or upper part of neck, this colour changes to pink, sometimes so soon 

 as about an hour after death. This fact may account for Swinhoe's 

 statement (Swinhoe's papers are duly recorded by Mr. Alpheraky). 



I may add that among A. serrirostris, as among other Bean-Geese, 

 some few specimens have some white on the chin. It is plainly an 

 individual feature, having nothing to do with age or sex. The bird is 

 rightly considered by Mr. Alpheraky as a subspecies of A. segetum Qm, 

 as intermediate specimens occur, with bills about 60 — 63 m/m. (2'37- 

 2*48 inch) long and 34 m/m. (1*35 inch) high at base, and depth of 

 lower mandible about 9-5-10"5 m/m. (0-37-0*41 inch). Such specimens, 

 when unsexed, can be identified only from the labels (locality). 



Anser carneirostr is, Buturlin. — This is another local race of A. segetum 

 differing not in form, as A. serrirostris, but in colouring of bill. While 

 the typical form (and eastern heavily billed race) has legs and pale parts 

 of bill chro ne-yellow (not uncommonly somewhat orange tinged), A. 



