White-fronted Goose 5 1 



to do so with the European and the Asiatic representatives of the grey-lag, with the ordinary 

 lesser white-fronted goose, and finally with the European and the Asiatic white-fronted geese. 



By this amalgamation, the question of the range of the present species is considerably 

 simplified, and may be expressed in general terms as follows : A. albifrons nests in limited 

 numbers 1 in Finmark and, on the testimony of Gobel, in Lapland. The following is 

 what the latter well-known oologist and ornithologist has written to me on this subject ; 

 " For reasons which are not quite clear to me, an opinion exists that A. albifrons is not 

 met with breeding in Lapland. I do not share this view, but hold that A. albifrons, 

 regularly or sporadically (of this I cannot judge), nests in Lapland, at any rate near 

 Notozero. In 1897 Laps brought to the Kola forester Auwikaine, now deceased, two 

 young geese from that locality, not quite mature. I saw them at his place in the winter 

 of 1899 when they were almost three years old. The female proved to be a typical 

 Melanonyx arvensis, with short bill marked by a yellow ring ; the male, on the other hand, 

 was A. albifrons, with, however, a remarkably narrow streak of white on the forehead and 

 around the base of the bill. The birds were of similar size. In the spring of 1898 and 

 1899 these geese paired, but the female laid no eggs." 2 



The species also breeds in the Kola Peninsula, in the region of the Varanger Fjord, 

 in large numbers in Novaia Zemlia, 3 in Kolguev, and in the Kaninsk Peninsula, in the 

 basin of the Obi, from its delta descending south to Berezov, in the Taimyr Peninsula, on 

 the Yenisei (where Mr. Popham found old birds, eggs, and young in down), and over the 

 whole of the extreme north of Siberia to Chukchiland inclusive. Whether the region of its 

 nidification is a continuous zone or with interruptions, the present extremely scanty data 

 do not admit of determining, and it is also impossible to determine even approximately the 

 southern frontier of the breeding-grounds of this species in Siberia. Like the lesser white- 

 fronted goose, this is pre-eminently a bird of the far northern tundra, and probably of the 

 majority of the islands lying along the whole shore of the Arctic Ocean of the East Asiatic 

 continent; Dr. Bunge having found it in 1866 on Lyakhov Island. 



The statement of the Russian sportsman, the late L. P. Sabaneev, that the breeding- 

 grounds of the white-fronted goose descend, in the Perm Government, as far south as 57 N. 

 lat, is refuted by Professor Menzbier. 



It must, however, be remembered that Eastern Russia is still extremely ill explored, 

 and that what now seems to us so little credible in the distribution of various animal 

 forms there, may very easily prove perfectly true. It is a sad confession, but the distrust 

 of our knowledge of Russia's fauna becomes stronger the more closely it is studied. 



The white-fronted goose also breeds in Greenland, Iceland, and throughout the 

 Arctic part of North America; in the latter as the longer-billed form now distinguished 

 under the name A. albifrons gambeli. 



On migration the white-fronted goose is met with not only in all European and 

 Asiatic Russia, but throughout Western Europe, wintering locally in Great Britain, Belgium, 

 Holland, and in the whole Mediterranean basin. It also winters in vast numbers in Egypt, 

 where, as Captain Shelley states, it is the predominating goose, 4 as well as in the basins of 



1 So far as known ; but perhaps in considerable numbers. 



2 Unfortunately, subsequently, in the absence of G. F. Gobel, who did not succeed, as he had intended, in taking their dimensions 

 they were eaten by their unscientific mistress. 



3 By Pearson found both in Liidtkeland and in the southern part of the island. 



4 Presumably this species was the domestic goose of ancient Egypt, as its portrait is found on the walls of ancient temples, 

 where it is represented as being fed by men. 



