INDIAN DUCKS AND THEIR ALLIES. 349 



smaller coverts next it, winglet, primaries at the base and primary 

 coverts, french-grey ; remainder of the wings brown, the secondary 

 <coverts edged whitish; under wing coverts and axillaries french-grey ; 

 two outer pairs of tail feathers white, the Gentral ones brown, tipped 

 white, and the others brownish at the base changing to white at the tip. 



" The irides are always brown ; the nail of the bill sullied white, 

 generally yellowish, or pinkish- white ; the bill, legs and feet vary from 

 creamy- white, with only, in places, a faint tinge of pink, through pale, 

 somewhat livid, fleshy-pink to a dingy-livid, purplish-red, and very 

 often the bill is of one shade, the legs and feet of another. Never in 

 any of the innumerable specimens that I have examined in India 

 have the bills had any orange or yellow tint about them." (Hume). 

 "Length about 33 w , wing 18"; tail Q'b", culmen 2*7": tarsus 3-2"" 

 (Salvadori). 



The female only differs in being smaller. Scully, " Stray Feathers" 

 {loco citato), gives the measurements of a female as follows -.--Length 

 31 inches; tail 6 inches; tarsus 3 ; bill from gape 9*7. 



The young are far less marked underneath, and the majority of 

 birds shot in India will be found nearly white underneath. In 

 the same place as that in which he gives the above dimensions for a 

 female, Scully gives others of a young bird : — " Length 30*5 ; 

 expanse 60*25 ; wing 16*5 ; tail 6*3 ; tarsus 3; bill from gape 2*65 ; 

 weight 5 lbs. 15 oz»" 



This bird differs from Anser ferns, the common wild goose, with 

 which it was long confounded, in being rather larger, and with propor- 

 tionately larger bill and feet, and the adult bird i& also more marked 

 with black on the underparts, though this last distinction does not hold 

 good with most Indian specimens. 



In the British Museum Catalogue the distribution of this goose is 

 given as " Siberia,, in winter Northern India and South China;" this, of 

 oourse, includes all the intervening countries, at all events whilst the 

 birds are on migration. 



Hume in " Game Birds" goes- into the question as to whether this bird 

 is the same as the one known in Europe as Anser cinereus, and he there 

 notes the differences between the two species in his usual accurate 

 manner, and now ornithologists agree, at least the majority do, that the 

 two species are distinct. Bodgsoa's name of rxtkrirostvis stands good 



