THE EMPEROR GOOSE 



BY EDWARD W. NELSON 



Among all the wild geese that make their summer home in the 

 far North — both in the Old and the New World — the emperor goose 

 is one of the least known and the most beautiful. Its snowy white 

 head, dusky throat, satiny gray body, on which each feather is marked 

 by a black crescent and white margin, and the brilliant orange 

 feet, make a strikingly handsome combination of colors. When the 

 males first arrive on their breeding-grounds in spring, the beauty of 

 their plumage is remarkable, but much of its satiny luster vanishes 

 as the season advances. 



After careful examination I found the adult males and females 

 to be absolutely indistinguishable. A fine adult female, taken at the 

 Yukon Mouth on May 22, had its iris hazel ; lower mandible dark 

 horn-color, with a white spot on each side of the rami ; membrane 

 about the nares livid-blue, upper surface of bill pale purplish or fleshy 

 white; edge of nail dark horn-color; rest of the nail white; inside of 

 mouth mottled black and white; feet and legs a bright, rich, orange- 

 yellow. 



Although the breeding-range of the emperor goose covers parts 

 of two continents, yet it is perhaps more restricted in its territory 

 than any other northern species of goose. Its summer home lies 

 along the coasts on both sides of Bering Strait, but, as we know, the 

 vast majority of the race breed in Alaska, mainly on the islands of 

 the lower part of the Yukon Delta, and thence southward on the low 

 marshy tundras to Cape Vancouver and nearly to the mouth of the 

 Kuskokwim River. A few stragglers nest north of the mouth of the 

 Yukon. Considerable numbers also breed on St. Lawrence Island, 

 where I have seen many flocks in June. They also rear their young 

 on the shores of Chukchi Land, in extreme northeastern Asia. We 

 saw them coasting along the beach near East Cape on the Siberian 

 side of Bering Strait the first of July, and they must have been breed- 

 ing in that district. When Nordenskiold wintered at Tapkan, on the 

 Arctic coast of Siberia northwest of Bering Strait, he noted the arrival 

 of these birds near his winter quarters as soon as the snow left the 

 tundra in spring. This is the most western record we have of them 

 in Siberia, but they no doubt range still farther. Their main winter- 

 ing place appears to be on the Pacific, or southern, side of the Penin- 

 sula of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Aleuts know them as 

 "beach geese," owing to their persistent occupation of the seashore. 



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