Sushkin's Goose 83 



did I see geese with the feet and centre of bill orange ; all the rest, with the exception of 

 stragglers of A. cinereus accidentally occurring in the flocks of bean-geese, were A. neglectus. 

 The goose with the feet and centre of bill dark flesh-coloured is well known to the local 

 Tatars and Bashkirs; A. segetum, on the contrary, is unknown to most of them, and 

 native fowlers to whom I showed my specimen regarded it as a rare or unknown bird. 

 Intelligent local sportsmen usually called geese with a black nail to the bill and coloured 

 feet bean -geese, but such of them as paid attention to the colouring of the bill and 

 feet constantly spoke of their rosy tint. Since A. neglectus collects in the Ufa district 

 in enormous flocks, I think Eversmann's statements regarding A, arvensis and A, 

 segehim partly refer to this goose. The statements communicated by Messrs. Bogdanov 

 and Ruzski as to bean-geese occurring on the Kama certainly refer partly to A. 

 segetum; but whether A. neglectus also occurs on the Kama is not known. It is also 

 unknown where A, neglectus is found beyond the limits of the Ufa Government; but 

 it may be averred with certainty that it is not met with either in Turkestan or near 

 Moscow; neither did I find it in the western part of the Turgai territory, although I 

 shot many geese there. In like manner the nesting range of this goose is still unknown. 

 Mr. P. S. Nazarov informed me, indeed, that in the neighbourhood of Urkach, in the 

 Turgai territory, he had observed geese breeding which agreed with the description 

 of A. neglectus I sent him; yet I do not venture to regard this as evidence of the 

 occurrence of that species, and will merely remark that in general the nesting of any 

 bean-goose so far south is opposed to the present state of our knowledge of the 

 distribution of these birds. 1 



" In this ignorance of its breeding range, it is difficult to express a definite 

 opinion as to the taxonomic importance and relation to A. segetum of A. neglectus. 

 I regret also to have to say that I did not succeed in obtaining a single skeleton, and a 

 later attempt to get such an example from one of the local fowlers resulted in failure. 

 In any case, it must be acknowledged that, in the first place, a passage from 

 A. segetum to A. neglectus has not been indicated ; and, secondly, that the latter form 

 — at any rate in certain localities — is very numerous. 



" Passing on to such observations on the migration and manner of life of 

 A. neglectus as I was able to make, it may be noted that in spring, from April 16 to 

 May 3, I observed near Ufa, and in the neighbourhood of Shungak-kul, flocks, at times 

 very large, composed of some kind of bean-geese. The birds were hurriedly flying north- 

 east, the formation of the skein being a wedge or a straight line, obliquely disposed to 

 the direction of flight. Judging by the results which were yielded by the autumn 

 passage, I am inclined to think that at least a considerable portion of these flocks 

 consisted of A. neglectus. The autumn migration of A. neglectus in 1891 began on 

 September 21, after the departure of A. cinereus; such a relation between the two, 

 according to the Bashkirs, being the rule. In the afternoon of that day four large flocks 

 of A. neglectus were noted, with about a hundred birds in each, flying S.W.S., the 

 formation of one of them being a wedge, while the other three were so arranged that 

 from each angle a line extended sideways perpendicular to the direction of flight. The 

 call of the migrants was audible in the night; and on the following day there was a 



1 A Kirgiz told me that on Lake Cholkar-igyz-kara, on the watershed between the head- waters of the Irgiz and Tobol, a goose 



nests which is not A. cinereus. In 1894, when I was on this lake, it had already dried up, and there were no geese there 



P, P. SUSHKIN, 



