1 6 Geese of Europe and Asia 



in European Russia and farther west in various parts of Europe, and the birds regularly 

 passing the winter on the Caspian. 



That subsequent travellers in Siberia have not confirmed the statements of Pallas 

 and Krasheninnikov is absolutely of no importance. It is quite recently, for instance, that 

 Fischer's eider-duck has been found breeding at the mouth of the Yana, and CEdemia 

 stejnegeri nesting constantly in the Altai. Besides this, it must not be forgotten that 

 this goose, as we have seen at the beginning of this article, has native names, which 

 undoubtedly points to an intimate acquaintance with these birds on the part of the natives, 

 who generally do not give names to rare and little-known animals. 



Unfortunately, we must confine ourselves to hypotheses respecting the distribution 

 of the snow-goose in Eastern Europe, and it only remains to add that, according to 

 report, it is frequently seen as a bird of passage on the middle Volga, as stated by 

 Mr. Buturlin. 



Dr. G. T. Radde, in his Ornis Caticasica, says that in severe * winters, among great 

 masses of various geese wintering in the Kizil-Agach Gulf, small flocks of snow-geese are 

 met with, which are very vigilant, and are known to all local hunters as white geese with 

 black primaries and secondaries. Nine of these geese were observed on February 28 (March 

 11), 1880, at the Burani Islands, but on March 5-17, when Dr. Radde was there, they 

 had already left. 



As regards these geese visiting Western Europe, there is no lack of data, although of 

 course they have been more often seen than caught, a usual circumstance in connection 

 with wild geese of all species. If most or all have hitherto been noticed in Great Britain, 

 this evidently is in consequence of the greater number of persons interested in zoology, 

 and the greater number of wild-fowlers. Judging by the snow-geese hitherto taken in 

 England and Ireland, they all belonged to the lesser form, i.e. Chen hyperboreus, and 

 not to the greater, Chen nivalis ; from this it is clear that they could not have arrived 

 from the eastern part of North America, where only the larger form is found, but from 

 other regions, probably the northern part of the Palaearctic region, but the precise locality 

 the future alone can make clear. 



In other parts of Western Europe snow-geese have also been observed comparatively 

 often. They have been observed, for instance, in Germany (as noticed by Naumann) ; in 

 Norway, where, according to Dr. Collett, 2 a female was taken in 1889 in Lesterland, not far 

 from Lindesnas, in the southern point of Norway, where, on September 24, 1889, four 

 birds settled, of which one was killed and given to the Christiania Museum. This was 

 an old female ; the three remaining birds lingered for some days. 



It is affirmed that these geese have been more than once noticed in the Greek 

 Archipelago, and probably they will be found wintering in the Black Sea, when that sea 

 shall be visited by systematic zoologists. As to the cases occasionally mentioned of the 

 appearance of snow-geese among flocks of bean-geese, or that, during the flight of flocks 

 of the latter, snow-geese were seen leading them, such identifications are mere guess- 

 work and devoid of certainty. Different species of geese in general keep apart from 

 others, and to suppose that one species should lead individuals belonging to another, is 

 to me personally more than doubtful. Albinos, however, undoubtedly occur among geese ; 

 and it seems more simple to explain these instances by the suggestion that albino bean-geese, 



1 It may, however, be assumed as almost certain not only in severe but in all winters, 

 2 Ornithologisches Jahrbuch, 1890, i. p. 37, 



