m CHEN ALBATUS. 



Snow-Goose, that it differs principally^ if not only, in size from Chen 

 hyperboreus. 



Here, then, Baird, Professor Newton, and Mr. Dresser all speak with 

 more or less doubt. A difference in size, when taken alone, is not quite a 

 safe ground on which to found a species. On the south coast we have two 

 races of Wheatears (^Saxicola cenanthe)^ the smaller and the larger. The 

 smaller migrate by themselves, and come first ; then the larger follow. 

 Mr. Gould gives the dimensions in his ' Birds of Great Britain,' but does 

 not venture to create two species. In the 4th edition of Yarrell (p. 354) the 

 Editor alludes to this great variation, but makes no new species, and holds 

 his hand. Yet in these two races there is a positive, constant, though shght 

 difference of plumage as well as of size. 



I could mention other instances ; and those who have had occasion to 

 examine a series of bones of birds will confess the manifest difference 

 in magnitude observable, and that not due to sexual causes or youth and 

 maturity. 



Mr. George Barnston, of the Hudson-Bay Company's Service (in 'The 

 Ibis,' 1860, vol. ii. p. 253 et seq,), says of the Snow-Goose (Anser hyper- 

 boreus) : — '' Although playing a less conspicuous part" [i. e. than the Brent- 

 Goose (^Bernicla brenta)'] " in the interior of the country, where it seldom 

 alights except along the margins of the lakes and streams and the extensive 

 grassy lakes of the prairies, it becomes, from its consolidated numbers, the 

 first object of sport in James's Bay. The Indian gets fatigued at the trade 

 of killing. In the fall, on some days when the flocks of young ' Wevois,' 

 or Wavies, are they are called, are namerous and passing southwards, it is 

 no uncommon thing for a good shot to send a hundred to his lodge between 

 sunrise and sunset. He has two guns ; his wife or son loads, while he 

 attends to the motions of the Geese, and brings them round to the bush or 



