INDIAN DUCKS. 



(15) ANSER MIDDENDORFFI. 

 MIDDEN DOEFl^'S GOOSE. 



Anser middendorffi, Oates, Jour. B. N. H. S. xvii, p. 4-5 ; Alpheralcy, ibid. 



p. 599 ; Buturlia, ibid. p. 604 ; id. Field, Nov. 17th, 1906 ; Oates, Ocime-B. 



ii, p. 76. 

 Anser serrirostris middendorffi, Salvadori, Cat. B. M. xxvii, p. 102. 

 Melanonyx arvensis sibiricus, Alpliemlcy, Geese, p. 104. 



Description. Adult male. — " Head and neck grey-brown, for the most part 

 with a strong rufous, coffee, or grey-bay tint. A male from Amurland has even 

 a golden-buff colour on the head and neck, and apparently such examples are far 

 from being of rare occurrence locally in East Siberia, as indicated by the name, 

 ' Tellow-headed Goose,' met with among native appellations in Transbaikalia. 

 All these various tints are evidently of accidental origin, and are just as 

 often present in different individuals as absent. They are doubtless caused by 

 the same factors as the rusty or yellow tinges on the heads of swans, ducks, 

 and other species of geese. 



" In the rest of the plumage, except for a more uniform dark brown 

 colouring on the upper surface of the body, the eastern form does not differ 

 from the type. Even in dimensions, with the exception, of course, of the bill 

 and feet, M. ai'vensis sibiricus almost agrees with large examples of M. arvensis." 

 {Alpheralcy .) 



Bill black, with a ring of yellow-orange round the apical portion of both 

 mandibles behind the nail. In most cases this is quite narrow, though it may 

 be found to extend as far back as the anterior edge of the nostril in a few 

 specimens, but never, as in arvensis, back to the edge of the forehead. 



Alpheraky gives the length of the culmen as never being less than 2*91 inches 

 in adults, and extending to as much as 3'26 ; and Buturlin gives the smallest 

 measurement he has found in this bird as 2-87, and in the same place says that 

 he has found specimens of arvensis with culmen exceeding 2*75. 



Middendorff's Goose is the Eastern form o£ arvensis, the Yellow-billed 

 Bean-Goose, and only differs from that bird, except as noted above, in 

 having a larger bill and in having less yellow on it. 



As regards its distribution, Alpheraky gives it as £ollo\^^s : — "• Every- 

 where in East Siberia, from the Taimyr Peninsula eastwards to Kamchatka, 

 Chukchiland. and the Komandor Islands. ... It nests on the Boffanida 

 on the lower reaches of the Yana, on the Vilyui in the Yakut 



