574 THE LESSER SNOW GOOSE. 



No. 275. 



LESSER SNOW GOOSE. 



A. O. U. No. 169. Chen hyperborea (Pall.). 



Description. — Adult : Entire plumage, except the primaries and their coverts, 

 pure white ; head and neck often heavily tinged with rusty ; primaries blackish and 

 with dark shafts on exposed portions, grayish and with white shafts basally ; pri- 

 mary coverts gray with dark shafts ; bill short, stout, with widely gaping commis- 

 sure, showing black edges of mandibles, said to be purplish red itj life, drying 

 (lull orange, nail white; feet and legs (drying) orange-red. Immature: Head 

 and neck pale gray; back and wings, except quills, gray, varied by mesial dusky 

 and marginal whitish, notably on wing-coverts and tertiaries ; remaining plumage 

 white. Length about 25.00 (635.) ; wing 15.25 (-387.4) ; tail 6.00 (152.4) ; bill 

 1.60-2.30 (40.6-58.4) ; tarsus 3.00 (76.2) ; middle toe and claw 2.30 (58.4). 



Recognition Marks. — Brant size; pure white plumage with conspicuous 

 black primaries (hence not difficult to determine on the wing) ; smaller. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in Ohio. "Nest, of grasses and down on the 

 gi'ound. BggSj 2-6, soiled whitish" (Chapman). Av. size, 3.13 x 2.12 (79.5 x 



53-9) • 



General Range. — Pacific Coast to the Mississippi Valley, breeding in Alaska ; 

 south in winter to southern Illinois and southern California, casually to New 

 England. Northeastern Asia. 



Range in Ohio. — Rare migrant or casual. 



SO'ME little conifusioin has always existed regarding the identification 

 of the Snow Geese. Just now, however, when each species has been greatly 

 reduced in numbers under the discipline of the modern breech-loader. Science 

 rests measurably content with four forms, the three here described, and the 

 rarer, Chcii rossi. One factor which has made the problem difficult from the 

 first is the separate flocking of adult and immature birds. Thus the two ranks 

 of the present species are said to be almost never seen together during migra- 

 tions, or in the winter feeding resorts; and this same exclusiveness obtains 

 largely even in summer. The birds are said to attain their majority in the 

 fotirth year. 



The flesh of the Snow Goose, especially of young birds, is held in high 

 regard, and furnishes a staple article of food to the natives and traders of the 

 far Northwest. Professor A. W. Butler, in his Birds of Indiana, relates an 

 incident, which afifords a curious link of interest between the modern hunter, 

 he of the breech-loader, and the primitive "Siwash" of Alaska. "A gentle- 

 man one day showed me an Alaskan bone arrow or spear point, which he said 

 he had found in northern Indiana, and stated that for some time he had been 

 puzzled to account for its appearance there. Then he showed me the sternum 

 of an Alaska Goose, possibly this species, which had been shot in northern 

 Indiana, through which a similar arrow head had pierced and remained firmly 



