46 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



ON THE SPECIFIC VALIDITY OF ANSER RUBRI- 

 ROSTRIS (Hodgson), AND ITS POSITION AS A 

 BRITISH BIRD. 



By F. Cobuen. 



The specific validity of this bird appears to have exercised 

 the minds of systematists very considerably from 1844 until the 

 present day. It was in this year (1844) that Gray first separated 

 the bird from A. cinereus, and called it A. erythropus, probably 

 from its red legs ; but this name properly belonged to the Lesser 

 White-fronted Goose. In the same year Hodgson, recognizing 

 the many characters which separate the bird from A. cinereus, 

 first named it A. rubrirostris, from the curious red colour of the 

 bill, upon which I shall dilate further on. Hodgson's name was 

 recognized by Taczanowski in 1877, but Adams in J 859, and 

 Swinhoe at various dates from 1861 to 1870, named it A.ferus. 

 In 1871, however, Swinhoe recognized the bird as A. cinereus 

 var. rubrirostris, being followed by Dybowski in 1873-4, Prje- 

 valsky in 1878, and Seebohm in 1885. Severtszoff, in 1875, 

 named it A. cinereus fi subalbifrons, probably from the very 

 distinct but narrow band of white at the base of forehead and 

 sides of bill. Finally — and without following the full synonymy 

 — Count Salvadori, in the Brit. Mus. Cat., Birds, vol. xxvii. p. 91 

 (1895), fully recognizes Hodgson's name, and establishes the 

 bird as A. rubrirostris. This decision, however, does not appear 

 to have met with very general acceptance by British ornitho- 

 logists, some still considering the bird to be but doubtfully 

 distinct. It will be my purpose in the present article to 

 endeavour to prove its specific validity, and its occurrence as a 

 rare visitor to Great Britain. 



It was on Nov. 23rd, 1901, that I received from Limerick, 

 Ireland, five Grey-lag Geese, which instantly struck me as pos- 

 sessing peculiar characters I had never noticed in these birds 

 before. They looked unusually large in size, very pale in their 

 general colouration, an unusually large amount of black on the 

 under parts of the adults, and a very distinct and sharply defined 



