( 562) 
SNOW GOOSE. 
ANSER HYPERBOREUS, Bonap. 
PLATE CCCLXXXI. Aputtr Mare anp Youne FEMALE. 
Tue geographical range of the Snow Goose is very extensive. 
It has been observed in numerous flocks, travelling northward, by the 
members of the recent overland expeditions. On the other hand, I 
have found it in the Texas, and it is very abundant on the Columbia 
River, together with Hutchins’s Goose. In the latter part of autumn, 
and during winter, I have met with it in every part of the United States 
that I have visited. 
While residing at Henderson on the Ohio, I never failed to watch 
the arrival of this and other species in the ponds of the neighbourhood, 
and generally found the young Snow Geese to make their appearance in 
the beginning of October, and the adult or white birds about a fortnight 
later. In like manner, when migrating northward, although the young 
and the adult birds set out at the same time, they travel in separate 
flocks, and, according to Captain Sir Grorcr Bacx, continue to do so 
even when proceeding to the higher northern latitudes of our continent. 
It is not less curious that, during the whole of the winter, these Geese 
remain equally divided, even if found in the same localities ; and 
although young and old are often seen to repose on the same sand-bar, 
the flocks keep at as great a distance as possible. 
The Snow Goose in the grey state of its plumage is very abundant 
in winter, about the mouths of the Mississippi, as well as on all the 
muddy and grassy shores of the bays and inlets of the Gulf of Mexico, 
as far as the Texas, and probably still farther to the south-west. Du- 
ring the rainy season, it betakes itself to the large prairies of Attacapas 
and Oppellousas, and there young and adult procure their food together, 
along with several species of Ducks, Herons, and Cranes, feeding, like 
the latter, on the roots of plants, and nibbling the grasses sideways, in 
the manner of the Common Tame Goose. In Louisiana I have not 
unfrequently seen the adult birds feeding in wheat fields, when they 
_pluck up the plants entire. 
When the young Snow Geese first arrive in Kentucky, about Hen- 
