Yellow-billed Bean-Goose ioi 



of Archangel and the Olonets Government, and in particular in the northern portion of Lake 

 Onega, although it is still impossible to indicate its range there in detail. It nests on Kolguev 

 and in Novaia Zemlia, and probably throughout the Pechora district ; in Finland its breeding- 

 grounds descend to 62 N. lat. It is the only goose of the Melanonyx group which I have 

 observed during five years in its autumn passage on the lakes of the southern part of the 

 Vyborg Government, where I have never noticed the bean-goose. In small separate parties, 

 or even pairs, it breeds in certain localities on the Baltic coast ; it doubtless occurs in 

 suitable spots of the Northern Transural, still so little explored ; and it certainly nests on 

 the lower waters of the Obi, and in the Taimyr district. 1 



From this it follows that, alike in the West and in the East the breeding range of this 

 species considerably exceeds that of the bean-goose. From the Taimyr peninsula, through the 

 Tomsk Government and the Western Thian-Shan, it descends to winter in Russian Turkestan, 

 but hardly ever strays into Transcaspian territory. On passage it is probably extremely 

 common in the Tomsk Government, whence, through the kindness of Professor N. F. 

 Kashchenko, I obtained nine heads of specimens taken in the neighbourhood of the city 

 of Tomsk on May 15, 1902, all of which proved to belong to the typical yellow-billed goose. 

 Hence it is quite possible that the " black" geese which, according to a communication of 

 Mr. Yablonsky, 2 nest in the taiga (so-called " chern " or black wood), near Barnaul, and which 

 I doubtfully assigned to Melanonyx segetum serrirostris, partly belong to yellow-billed 

 M. arvensis as affirmed by the author in question. It happened, however, that the specimens 

 of M. arvensis sent by Professor Kashchenko from Tomsk came into my hands much later 

 than those of M. segetum serrirostris sent from Barnaul by the same donor, and that I had 

 consequently completed the article on the former before I received the latter. Personally I 

 think that, in the Tomsk Government and locally in that of Irkutsk, both species may breed, 

 and that both are probably known by the same name — gits chernevoi. 



Probably M. arvensis, as distinct from M. segetum, winters in some parts of Trans- 

 caucasia, as, for example, in the valley of the Kura ; but it seems not to occur at all in 

 winter on the shores of the Caspian, the fauna of which is, however, still imperfectly known. 

 On the other hand, in the Crimea it winters on the Sivash, and doubtless on other 

 shores of the Black Sea, — even worse known zoologically than the Caspian. It also winters 

 throughout the northern part of the Mediterranean basin. From Egypt it is, however, 

 completely absent. In Western Europe this goose is almost everywhere abundant as a 

 migrant, wintering in the more temperate districts, such as Spain, where, however, its 

 numbers are incomparably less than those of the grey- lag or the white-fronted goose. 

 Considerable numbers pass the winter in Great Britain, where the species is usually not 

 recognised by either sportsmen or ornithologists as distinct from the bean-goose. Owing to 

 the kind assistance of Mr. Frohawk, I am, however, now able to state that the great majority 

 of geese wintering in Great Britain, and known as bean-geese, belong to this species and 

 not to M. segetum. 



Without having seen specimens from those places, it is impossible to say to what 

 species belong the bean-geese sometimes met with on the island of Madeira and in 

 Iceland, but, for certain reasons, I think they will prove to be yellow-bills. That the number 

 of the two species of bean-geese wintering in Great Britain is continually diminishing, owing 

 to the increase of the pink-foot (M. brackyrkynchus), seems evident from the literature on 



1 As it was evidently met with there by Middendorff. 

 2 Priroda г Okhota, 1902. 



