NOTES AND QUERIES. 273 



was not indubitable. Of course, the Mr. Tye I have in my mind may 

 not have been the same gentleman mentioned by Mr. Coburn. 



It may be of interest to state that last winter, on two certain little 

 islands adjoining one another in the Hebrides, I came across all the 

 British Geese with the exception of the Pink-footed species, White- 

 fronted and Bernicle being especially very numerous. Two pairs of 

 Grey Lag- Geese are nesting on one of these islands now. Besides 

 these there were a great many Swans, Bewick's chiefly, but a fair 

 number of Whoopers also, with a few Mute. In another part of Scot- 

 land I saw more Pink-footed Geese than in any previous winter ; 

 there must have been between four and five thousand of them in this 

 place alone. 



I trust that some authority will settle this question on the Geese 

 once and for all, and show that really there is but one species each, 

 of the Pink-footed, Bean, and White-fronted Geese. — H. W. Eobinson 

 (Lansdowne House, Lancaster). 



Anser rubrirostris. Dr. Radde's Evidence. — M. Sergius A. Butur- 

 lin is to be thanked for the interest he manifests in our Wild Geese ; 

 his desire to see that all references are correct is most laudable, 

 but, if the citation he gives us in German from the late Dr. Radde's 

 work on ' The Birds of the Mainland of North-East Siberia ' (ante, 

 p. 233) has been correctly printed, it must have sorely puzzled all who 

 have read and translated it. As printed, the quotation does not appear 

 to me to be in very graceful German ; a little transposing, however, 

 would make it read thus: — " Auch an diesem Vogel sehe ich um die 

 Oberschnabelbasis einen recht eclatanten rostbraunen* Ton sich ver- 

 breiten, der zu brennenden Fuchsroth gesteigert wird (und reicht bis) 

 auf einem schmalen, vielfach von weissen Federchen durchsetztem 

 Bande welches die Schnabelbasis einfasst. Ausserdem (i. e. with this 

 exception) war der ganze Schnabel dieses Vogels schmutzig weiss." 

 This, freely translated, would read thus : — " Also (or again) in this 

 bird I notice around the base of the beak a very marked rusty-brown 

 (or red-brown) colour, which becomes a burning (or flaming) fox-red, 

 and this reaches up to a small band with numerously interspersed 

 white feathers, which surrounds the base of the beak. With this 

 exception the whole of the beak was of a dirty- white colour." 



Here then M. Buturlin supplies us — apparently quite unconsciously 

 — with a perfect confirmation of the accuracy of Count Salvadori and 

 Dr. Bowdler Sharpe's translation of Dr. Radde's words ! Indeed, no 



* Perhaps in the original this is rothbraunen=red-brown. 

 Zool. 4th set. vol. VII., July, 1903. Y 



