Lesser White-fronted Goose 



61 



Vent and under tail-coverts pure white. Back and shoulders brown, varying in depth 

 in different individuals, with white edgings to feathers, and sometimes extremely similar to 

 feathering of same parts in Branta bernicla ; rump blackish, upper tail-coverts pure white. 

 Tail consists of sixteen greyish black feathers with narrow white edgings and broad 

 white tips. 



Upper lesser wing-coverts ashy blue, median similarly coloured basally, but with 

 brownish tint on outer half of feathers ; greater secondary coverts brown with narrow white 

 tips ; primary coverts light cinereous grey. 



Outer primaries grey with blackish tips ; inner primaries and outer secondaries entirely 

 brown-black, so that with folded wing a fairly conspicuous brown-black speculum is obtained. 



Inner secondaries and tertiaries same colour as scapulars. Shafts of all feathers 

 white, with exception of the black tips. 



Under part of wing very dark grey, and axillaries still darker — blackish. 



Bill very different from that of white-fronted goose, much shorter, and more conical 

 in shape, i.e. compared with tip, much thicker at its base; tomia of upper mandible not 

 curved at all, and in living and freshly killed 

 specimens completely covering teeth of upper man- 

 dible, of which there are altogether 22 on each 

 side instead of 28, as usual in the white-fronted 

 goose. 1 



It must, however, be borne in mind that, 

 although in the majority even of dry skins in the 

 lesser white-fronted goose the teeth of the upper 

 mandible are not visible when the bill is shut, 

 sometimes when, in drying, the skin of the edges 

 of the upper mandible gets warped or slightly raised, 

 its teeth are disclosed. In the relation between 

 the length of the nail of the upper mandible to the 

 total length of its culmen, there is also a consider- 

 able difference, as shown in the annexed drawings. 



As regards the colouring of the bill, I am compelled to go into somewhat greater 

 detail below ; while its dimensions are given in the general table of measurements of this 

 species. 



The feet of this small species of goose are apparently, in the vast majority of cases, 

 orange-yellow, with paler (yellow) webs ; the ceroma is lemon-yellow or also orange-yellow. 

 Iris dark chestnut. As Dr. Sushkin informs me, the eyelids (orange-yellow or lemon- 

 yellow) are very perceptibly swollen, so that a marked ring is produced around the eye, such 

 as is never the case in A. albifrons. In consequence of this, the Ostyaks call this goose 

 kirrisem (sturgeon-eye), as stated by Pallas. 



A nser finmarchicus, $ 

 Culmen 35 mm. 



A nser albifroriS) S 

 Culmen 53 mm. 



Adult Female 



Resembles male, and, as in all geese, is somewhat less in size ; although some 

 females are large, not yielding in this respect to the smaller ganders, their bills are shorter 

 than in males of same size. 



1 It is very possible that, with fuller material, some specimens will be found to have one or two teeth more or less, but it may be 

 presumed that the number in the lesser white-fronted goose never reaches that in A. albifrons. 



