952 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



was a goose with a pink bill in China and Eastern Asia. It may 

 appear incredible that Mr. Alpheraky should neglect to inform 

 himself upon such a matter, but the inference is irresistible when 

 the following circumstances are taken into consideration. 



In the first place, he figures the bill of A. serrirostris of a yellow 

 colour, without stating his reason for differing from Swinhoe* In 

 the second place, he writes a very long article on this species, ex- 

 tending over sis and a half quarto pages, without making a single 

 allusion to Swinhoe, although this naturalist has said some very 

 interesting things about this goose. In the third place, at the head 

 of his article, he gives references to Swinhoe's writings in the Ibis 

 (1860, p. 67 ; 1861, p. 341; 1862, p. 253), but omits the refe- 

 rence to Ibis, 1867, p. 392. The first three references given contain 

 no information, but the fourth, the omitted one, is the one wherein 

 Swinhoe fully describes A. serrirostris for the first and only time. In 

 the fourth place, Mr. Alpheraky receives specimens of a goose from the 

 Anadyr, as already stated, and not a suspicion crosses his mind that 

 they tally with the goose described by Swinhoe. 



If Mr. Alpheraky had known of Swinhoe's description of A^ 

 serrirostris, how can he obstinately hold to the opinion, how could he 

 ever have formed the opinion, that this bean-goose has a yellow 

 bill in life ? He must surely know that nothing can override an 

 original description of a species and that no one is at liberty to alter 

 or qualify it in any respect. 



Mr. Bnturlin has undertaken the defence of Mr. Alpheraky, but 

 with little success. Referring to my paper he asks in the Field : — 

 " But what is the figure 7 of the same work, named by Mr. Oates 

 Anser serrirostris — I cannot guess — most certainly it is not that 

 species." Probably by this time Mr. Buturlin has read Swinhoe's 

 description and has discovered that I have figured the bill correctly. 

 In his communication to our Journal, Mr. Buturlin suggests that 

 Swinhoe is wrong, and he imputes to him a want of sagacity which 

 would be deplorable in a child. He then adopts a very common form 

 of argument and one which perhaps some persons think convincing. 

 He states that he has shot scores and scores of a goose with a yellow 

 bill ; that he has seen numbers of them caught by natives and that he 

 always recorded the colours os the spot. Evidently Mr. Buturlin 

 considers that these experiences fully qualify him to assert positively 



