94 CHEN ALBATUS. 



Professor Newton remarks fin the ' Manual of the Natural History, 

 Geology, and Physics of Greenland and the neighbouring Regions ; prepared 

 for the use of the Arctic Expedition, 1875. PubUshed by the Royal 

 Society and by authority of the Commissioners of the Admiralty ') on Chen 

 hyperhoreus (Snow-Goose) : — " A few young birds only had been seen, and 

 these more frequently in the Northern Inspectorate than in the Southern. 

 Is found also on the west coast of Davis Strait. Probably breeds in the 

 far north ; but a doubt may perhaps be entertained whether the examples 

 killed in Greenland belong to the true C hyperhoreus or to C albatus (if these 

 he really distinct)^ which is said to have occurred in Ireland." 



Mr. Bernard H. Ross (Nat.-Hist. Rev. 1862, p. 286) as follows:— 

 " There can be little doubt of the existence of three species of Snow-Geese 

 (exclusive of the Blue Wavey, of Hudson's Bay), as the Slave-Lake Indians 

 have a different name for each kind. The first which arrives is the middle- 

 sized species, which I believe to be J. alhatus ; next comes the smallest sort, 

 the A, rosii ; and last the A, hyperhoreus, which appears when the trees are 

 in leaf, and is called the Yellow Wavey by the Indians." 



Now this passage is exactly what I should expect to find. The above 

 birds follow a migratory rule, a canon of migration, which is commonly (I 

 have not experience enough to be able to say invariahly^ this : — In birds which 

 do not attain maturity till tw^o or more years (and which may or may not 

 breed before they have arrived at it), the adolescent birds of both sexes flock 

 together, keep apart from the others, and migrate together by themselves — 

 sometimes first ; the adult birds come also in flocks, probably each sex by 

 itself, and usually arrive last. 



As a rider to the above I would add :— In birds which attain maturity 

 the first year, the cocks very frequently migrate first, and then the hens. 



Therefore an application of the above canon to the Geese would bring 

 them to the notice of the Indians as described by Mr. Ross. 



