THE WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 209 



coming off at the distance of 2^ inches, the latter at that of 1 inch 2 twelfths, 

 from the inferior larynx. The cleido-tracheal muscle is a direct continuation 

 of part of the contractor, but the sterno-tracheal is independent of them, and 

 attached to two rings of the trachea. The contractor muscle terminates in 

 the solid tube, at the distance of 9 twelfths from the inferior larynx. 



THE WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 



-fANSER ALBIFRONS, Bechst. 



PLATE CCCLXXX— Male and Female. 



Neither Wilson nor Nuttall seem to have been aware of the regularity 

 with which this species migrates through the United States. When I 

 shewed a drawing of it to the first of these authors, he pronounced it to be a 

 young Snow Goose, although I described to him its peculiar notes. During 

 the whole of my residence in Kentucky, a winter never passed without my 

 seeing a good number of them; and at that season they are frequently offered 

 for sale in the markets of New Orleans. An English gentleman, who was 

 on his way to the settlement of Birkbeck in the prairies west of the Ohio, 

 and who spent a few weeks with me at Henderson, was desirous of having a 

 tasting of some of our game. His desire was fully gratified, and the first 

 that was placed before him was a White-fronted Goose. I had killed seven 

 of these birds the evening before, in a pond across the Ohio, which was 

 regularly supplied with flocks from the beginning of October to the end of 

 March. He pronounced it "delicious," and I have no reason to dissent from 

 his opinion. From the numbers seen high on the Arkansas river, I presume 

 that many winter beyond the southern limits of the United States. They 

 are exceedingly rare, however, along our Atlantic coast. In Kentucky they 

 generally arrive before the Canada Goose, betaking themselves to the grassy 

 ponds; and of the different species which visit that country they are by far 

 the least shy. The flocks seldom exceed from thirty to fifty individuals. 

 Their general appearance is that exhibited in the plate, and which I consider 

 as their winter plumage, feeling pretty confident that in summer the lower 

 part of the body becomes pure black. 



Vol. VI. 28 



