Lesser White-fronted Goose 63 



Young Birds after Second Moult 



Already white on head, but with black speckles (black feathers) and white spot at 

 mental angle very small. Scanty small black patches already appear on belly, increasing 

 in size and number with each successive year. 1 



Young in Down 



Judging from illustration given by Middendorf, under the name of A. temminckii 

 {Sib. Reis., ii. pi. xx. fig. 2), above dark grey-brown, under surface and forehead to posterior 

 angle of eyes greenish yellow with, dark longitudinal streak across eyes. In freshly killed 

 specimen the bill was dark greyish brown with reddish yellow point. Legs yellow-grey 

 shot with greenish. 



Seeing that by many authors the bill of this species is described as orange, Mr. 

 Buturlin decided to separate the geese of more easterly origin without orange bill as a 

 separate species, which he described under the name of Anser rhodorhynchus. 



If, merely on statements in literature, the esteemed author of Dikie Gusi Rossiiskoi 

 Imperii had grounds or the right to proceed thus, I, on the other hand, after examining 

 his question critically, come to the same result as in the cases of the grey-lag and white- 

 fronted goose, namely, that the majority of authors' descriptions of the bill of this goose as 

 orange are inaccurate, and I am therefore compelled to add the species established by 

 Buturlin to the number of synonyms for A. finmarchicus. I had already written this, 

 when there appeared in Psov. i Ruzh. Okhota for 1902 (March number, p. 134 et seq) 

 Mr. Zhitnikov's criticism of the species A. rhodorPiynchus described by Buturlin, which 

 completely coincides with my view. 



I am here compelled to make a rather long and tiresome digression, which will, how- 

 ever, supply some information supplementing the above-cited descriptions of this species. 



Although it is the custom to consider that there is no difference in plumage between 

 the lesser and ordinary white-fronted goose, this is perfectly untrue. The arrangement 

 of the colouring is indeed the same, but the head and upper half of the neck in the lesser 

 white-fronted goose are considerably darker than in all white-fronted geese whose skins I 

 have examined while writing the present book. Further, the back is also darker and 

 strikingly recalls in its colouring that of the brent-goose (Branta bernicla). But the chief 

 distinction in plumage between the two species consists in the breadth of the white patch 

 on the forehead, which in the white-fronted goose only in rare cases reaches backwards to 

 the line joining the anterior angles of the eyes (it is mostly far from reaching this line), 

 but which always considerably passes this line in the lesser white-fronted goose. The 

 breadth of this patch in the adult lesser white-fronted goose is always more than an 

 inch (not less than 33 mm. = 1.25 in.), while in the white-fronted goose it is usually con- 

 siderably less than an inch, and only in rare cases is a full inch in breadth, 25.4 mm. 



1 It is very probable of the lesser white-fronted goose Maleev writes, in his article {Psov. i Rush. OM., 1900, pt. ix. July, p. 52), 

 that in the Kirgiz Steppe " the Cossacks determine the years of the kazarka by the dark bars across the bird's belly. In young birds, 

 the lower part is whitish, there later appearing one, two, and more bars ; as many as seven having been met with, while in some the whole 

 of the under-side is black." The Cossacks call them "tatars." 



