90 Geese of Europe and Asia 



plumage, dull greyish red. It is, however, desirable to have a more accurate picture of all 

 the dresses of this goose than those possessed by the authors who have written on it and 

 have seen it alive. 



Young in Down 



As regards the colouring of the young in down, we have two rather contradictory 

 descriptions. 



Thus, according to Professor A. Newton, specimens from Spitzbergen "are clothed 

 in greenish yellow down, with patches of olive on the back of the head, lore, and region 

 of the eye, upper side of the wings, middle and lower part of the back, and the flanks; 

 but the ground-colour of one is much darker than the other. One (the darkest) specimen, 

 singularly enough, has on the outer edge of the middle toe, and on the outer interdigital 

 web of each foot, some two or three small yellowish feathers — a fact I cannot at all 

 explain." 



According, however, to Mr. Trevor- Batty e, who became acquainted with this goose 

 in Spitzbergen, the young have no yellow but are covered with grey down. 



As to the alleged occurrence of this goose in Russia, a doubt has been expressed, 

 and at the same time amply supported, by Mr. Buturlin in his interesting work Dikie gusi 

 Rossiiskoi Imperii, wherein it is suggested that the statements of Mr. F. D. Pleske and 

 Mr. N. N. Somov are insufficient to indicate that these authors had really to do with 

 this species, the colouring of the soft-parts of which are of the same rose flesh-colour as 

 in the pink-foot. 



I go further, in my bibliography, and attach queries to a whole series of notices 

 supposed to refer to this goose. Not that I have any desire to deny the possibility of the 

 pink-footed goose visiting the more western part of Russia ; on the contrary, I fully admit 

 such possibility, but until one case of such straying has been substantiated, I decline to 

 receive this species into the Russian fauna. 



Since Dr. Sushkin discovered and described a goose with rosy bill and feet from 

 the Ufa Government, which occurred on passage in Hungary, wintering in Persia and 

 nesting in Novaia Zemlia, 1 there can hardly be any doubt that all the notices of a pink- 

 footed goose being met with in European Russia refer either to M. neglectus or to the 

 Novaia Zemlia bean-goose described by Heuglin, and later on by Mr. Buturlin, as 

 M. carneirostris, if only this goose prove to be really a distinct species, and not some 

 hybrid, for example, of the yellow-bill or bean-goose with Sushkin's goose, which, of 

 course, is perfectly possible from the statements given in the notice of that Novaia 

 Zemlia bean-goose. 



Mr. N. N. Somov's statement that, judging from a communication by Mr. 

 Chebyshev, 2 from the district in question, geese killed in the Starobelsk district of the 

 Kharkov Government "with light-rose bills and feet and mottled belly" probably belong 

 to the species brachyrhynchtis, is untrustworthy, since the weight given for them (8 to 

 10 lbs.) absolutely refutes the assertion, to say nothing of the mottled belly — an un- 

 doubted character of a goose of the genus A user. Light- rose bill and feet to match, 

 mottled belly, and weight 8 to 10 lbs., to my mind, speak perfectly definitely in favour 

 of the common grey-lag [Anser anser). 



1 And in all probability on Kolguev, as we shall see later on. 

 2 Qkhotnichya Gazeta for 1889, No. 11, p. 133. 



