WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 569 



vourite ponds. In the fields they pick up the grains of maize left by the 

 squirrels and racoons, and nibble the young blades of grass. In their 

 gizzards I have never found fishes or water lizards, but often broken 

 shells of different kinds of snails. 



They leave us a fortnight sooner than the Canada Geese, and start 

 along with the Snow Geese, but keep in separate flocks. In this order 

 they have been observed travelling over the fur countries by Dr Richard- 

 son, who informs us that they breed in the woody districts skirting Mac- 

 kenzie's River to the north of the sixty-seventh parallel, and also on the 

 islands of the Arctic Sea ; but that they are not common about Hudson's 

 Bay. The egg of this Goose measures two inches and three-quarters in 

 length, by one and three-quarters in breadth. The shell is smooth, of a 

 dull yellowish-green, with indistinct patches of a darker tint of the same 

 colour. 



Anas ai.bifrons, Gmel. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 509 — Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 842. 



Anser ALBiFRONS, Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of the United States, p. 376 



Swains, and Ricfiard. Fauna Bor. Amer. part ii. p. 456. 

 White-fronted or Laughing Goose, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 346. 



Adult Male. Plate CCLXXXVI. Fig. 1. 



Bill shorter than the head, much higher than broad at the base, some- 

 what conical, depressed towards the end, rounded at the tip. Upper 

 mandible with the dorsal line sloping, the ridge broad and flattened, but 

 slightly convex, the sides sloping, the edges with twenty-eight oblique 

 lamella, the unguis circular, convex, obscurely denticulate along the edge. 

 Nasal groove oblong, parallel to the ridge, filled by the soft membrane 

 of the bill ; nostrils medial, lateral, longitudinal, narrow-elliptical, open, 

 pervious. Lower mandible nearly straight, with the angle very long 

 and rather narrow, the edges soft and obtuse, with about forty oblique, 

 slightly"recurved lamellae. 



Head of moderate size, oblong, compressed. Neck rather long and 

 slender. Body full, slightly depressed. Feet rather short, strong, placed 

 rather behind the centre of the body ; legs bare a little above the joint ; 

 tarsus rather short, a little compressed, covered all round with angular 

 reticulated scales, which are smaller behind ; hind toe very small, with a 

 narrow membrane ; third toe longest, fourth considerably shorter, but 

 longer than second ; all the toes reticulated above at the base, but with 

 narrow transverse scutella towards the end; the three anterior connected by 



