48 Geese of Europe and Asia 



this species in the dimensions of the bill. If even it be granted that the American form 

 (gambeli) must be distinguished from the East Asiatic white-fronted geese, yet the latter 

 at any rate are not distinguishable from the European birds. We shall try to prove this 

 again by entering more fully into the question of the colouring of the bill of this goose. 

 Inaccurate description of the colouring of the bill of the European white-fronted goose has 

 been, perhaps, the main cause for separating from it the American and the East Asiatic 

 birds under the name of Anser gambeli. 



That the orange or yellow colouring of the bill was attributed to the European white- 

 fronted goose from dry bills — or at any rate from birds that had been killed some time — 

 is beyond doubt. In living or recently killed birds the bill is probably never either all 

 yellow or all orange, only separate portions of it being of that colour. The admission that 

 sometimes a white-fronted goose may be found with the bill of abnormal colour may be 

 made, and analogous cases are known among other aquatic birds (e.g. grey-lag, mallard), 

 but such a feature would be a conspicuous exception, and it cannot therefore be taken into 

 account. The question of the normal colouring of the bill in the given case is so important 

 that I am compelled to touch upon it in greater detail in order to ascertain once for all 

 what this really is in both the European and the Eastern white-fronted goose described here, 

 and also in that of North America. 1 I will begin with an author whose accuracy hardly 

 any one can doubt, but whose excellent works, for some reason or other, are now more 

 ignored than they should be. I mean Naumann, who describes the bill of this goose as 

 follows : " Colour of entire bill. Usually it is pale and pure yellow-red or orange-red without 

 black, and this colour passes in old birds through dull flesh-colour to a more or less rosy red, 

 often to a very beautiful rosy tint ; but this colouring is to be seen only in living specimens, 

 as after death it rapidly turns into orange." 



Farther on, Naumann states that he saw near Potsdam in a living pair of these 

 geese " this beautiful rosy colouring also on the feet." 2 



The nail is described by the same writer as dingy white or white, passing toward 

 the tip into grey. 



" In mature young birds," 3 continues Naumann, "the bill is reddish ochreous yellow. 



"The dingy yellowish or brownish-white nail posteriorly and the sides of the lower 

 mandible have dingy brown markings. 



" Within, the beak is somewhat paler than without; the tongue is of a yellowish reddish 

 white or flesh-colour. After death the colouring of the bill passes from orange to reddish, 

 then becomes darker, and finally, after drying, assumes a whitish horn-yellowish colour. The 

 nail remains white ; the ceroma is reddish yellow or red-grey. The feathering of the outer 

 part of the eyelids is whitish." 



From this statement of Naumann's it becomes evident that in the live birds seen 

 by him the bill was of a beautiful rosy colour, and that after death it rapidly passed into 

 orange. From the last phrase it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that if the bill of the 

 living bird were already orange, there was no reason for it to be subjected to any change or 

 transformation in order to again become orange. 



1 I am fully conscious that my frequent repetitions and long dwelling on the structure and colouring of the bills of certain geese 

 must be very tiresome to the majority of my readers, but I am obliged to unravel very involved questions which for more than a century 

 have remained undecided, and I cannot do this otherwise than by a careful analysis aimed at substantiating the view expressed by myself 

 on certain species of geese, or my deductions might be regarded as baseless. 



2 Italics mine. 



3 Consequently in their first plumage. 



