Geese of Europe and Asia 



tips rufous and edged with light rufous or light grey. Rump slate-brown ; upper and lower 

 tail-coverts pure white. Tail blackish brown, with white edgings and tips to the feathers. 

 Upper wing-coverts slaty ashen grey, and edged (more or less widely) with light rufous. 1 

 Tips of median and greater wing-coverts very pale grey rufous. Outer primaries grey, with 

 black tips; inner primaries and secondaries uniformly brown -black, latter with narrow 

 whitish margins ; tertiaries dark brown with wider whitish edgings. Whole breast 

 rufous brown, with pale edgings to feathers, producing a barred wavy effect. Flanks rufous 

 brown, each feather at tip passing gradually into rufous, and fringed with lighter, sometimes 

 greyish, margins. 



Remaining part of under surface of body dingy white, upper part of belly with darker 

 grey transverse striping. Lower wing-coverts and axillaries dark grey. In the colouring of 

 the plumage, and in particular of the upper surface of the wing, this bean-goose thus shows 

 greater resemblance to the grey-lag than to its congeners. 



The bill, from its shortness and in having only 20 or at most 22 teeth on each side 

 of the upper mandible, 2 approaches nearer, in shape and proportion of length of nail to 

 total length of culmen, to that of the typical bean-goose (M. segetum) than to that of any 

 of the others, as will be clearly seen from the annexed figures of the bills of the bean, 

 yellow-bill, and pink-footed geese. 



M. brachyrhynchiis, $ 



Culmen 48 mm. 



(Spitzbergen.) 



M. segetum, $ 

 Culmen 58 mm. 



(Ural.) 



M. arvensis, £ 



Culmen 66 mm. 



(Novgorod.) 



Colouring of bill black ; but between the black nail of the upper mandible and the 

 front edge a rosy flesh-coloured band, embracing both mandibles, from which on upper 

 mandible extends backwards, under nares and along tomium, a wedge-shaped streak of the 

 same colour, sometimes reaching only to posterior margin of nasal apertures, but more rarely 

 right up to the gape. Personally, I have not seen a specimen of the latter type. 



1 In an old Spitzbergen gander these edges are whitish grey, at a distance even seeming white ; but this bird was obtained in July, 

 i.e. during the fading of the feathering before moulting. 



2 I had long finished this notice, when I received in January 1903 a letter from Mr. Frohawk, in which he enclosed me a drawing of 

 the bill of a goose of this species, obtained by Mr. Pike in Holland, and in which on one side of the upper mandible are 25, and on the 

 other 26 teeth. The bill, says Mr. Frohawk, is, as it were, thinner than in ordinary pink-footed geese. I must own that, judging from 

 Mr. Frohawk's drawing, a doubt arises in my mind whether the goose belongs to this species. Unfortunately, not having seen it, I cannot 

 decide the question. 



