22 



THE OOLOGIST 



16?, Snow Goose, Chen hyperboreus 

 hyperboreus. 



162a, Greater Snow Goose, Chen hyp- 

 erboreus nivalis. 



The foregoing halftone shows a flock 

 of ten Snow Geese (and some Blue 

 Geese), some of which have been in 

 semi-confinement upon the writer's 

 premises for a number of years, these 

 birds could be reduced to the tameness 

 of ordinary domestic fowl. 



One pair of birds shown are of the 

 Greater Snow Goose variety. These 

 two varieties, the Greater and Lesser 

 Snow Geese are by scientists dis- 

 tinguished, though to the ordinary ob- 

 server, there would be little differ- 

 ence to be seen. Measurements can- 

 not always be relied on, for some of 

 the larger of the Lesser Snow Geese 

 are larger than some of the smaller 



of the Greater Snow Geese. However 

 it is supposed that the Lesser Snow 

 Goose breeds along the Arctic coast 

 West of Hudson's Bay and comes 

 South over the Great plains and down 

 through the Westerly half of the 

 United States and the Mississippi val- 

 ley in winter and that the Eastern or 

 Greater Snow Goose is found about 

 both shores of Hudson's Bay, along 

 the West coast of Greenland and breed 

 generally, or mostly on Victoria land 

 in the Arctic Sea. Though we have 

 had both varieties, birds coming from 

 both California and the Atlantic Coast 

 as above stated, for sometime, we can 

 for ourselves determine no substan- 

 tial difference between them. The 

 printed descriptions found in the 

 technical books are as befogging as an 

 observation of the birds themselves. 

 Yet there may be good ground for 

 separating the two varieties. 



