Anser erytliropus and its Allies. 271 
eyes, as will be seen from the accompanying figure o£ 
Mr. Coburn's bird (fig. 6, p. 270). For further comparison 
I think it advisable to give an outline of the head of an 
Egyptian example of A. erythropus (fig. 7, p. 270). Another 
important point is that in A. erythropus the eyelids are 
yellowish, making a definite circle round the eye {cf. Ibis, 
1901, p. 451). 
Mr. Coburn's Goose may possibly be nearly adult, but I 
doubt the fact, for it has not much black on the under 
surface, although shot in the month of January; he con- 
sidered the skull smaller than that of A. albifrons, and the 
eve-sockets nearer to the base of the bill — an osteological 
difference which, though slight, may be important. 
His bird measured 22 inches in length before it was 
skinned, whereas the length of a fine A. albifrons, also 
preserved by him, was 26' 5, and that of another measured 
by me was 27. 
Its legs, when he received it, were deep reddish orange, 
having probably changed to that colour from yellow ; the 
bill was fleshy yellow, the nail white with a pink tinge ; 
the irides were hazel. The colour of the soft parts, and 
especially of the beak, is a very important feature in Geese, 
but needs to be noted immediately after death or in life. 
Linnaeus, when he described A. erythropus as having *^ ros- 
trum sordide carneum .... pedes sanguinei,^' probably had 
before him an example of this species ; but it must have been 
one which had been several days dead, and Pallas, unless 
he copied from Linneeus, must have been misled in the same 
way (Zoogr. Rosso-As.). Even Bishop Gunner does not 
give the colour correctly (see Prof. Newton^s translation of 
Gunner in Breeds ' Birds of Europe'). 
It may be worth while briefly to sketch the distribution 
of A. erythropus so far as it has been distiuguished from 
A. albifrons, which inhabits the greater part of Europe 
and Asia, but is the less northern species of the two. The 
nearest place to the British Isles where A. erythropus breeds 
is the Lofoten Islands in the north of Ncn'way; thence it 
extends eastwards to Lapland and Finland and throughout 
