THE GREY LAG-GOOSE. 63 
(vide infra) as over 9 lbs. English, and says that they com- 
monly weigh nearly 11 Ibs. at times exceed 12 considerably, 
and are said to have been obtained up to 16% lbs. 
The irides are always brown; the nail of the bill sullied 
white, generally yellowish or pinkish white ; the bill, legs, and 
feet vary from creamy white with only, in places, a faint tinge 
of pink, though pale, somewhat livid fleshy pink, to a dingy 
livid purplish red, and very often the bill is of one shade, the 
legs and feet of another. Never in any of the innumerable speci- 
mens that I have examined in India have the bills had any 
orange or yellow tint about them. 
Season has nothing to do with the changes of colour above 
referred to, for I have got specimens of all types of colouring 
on the same day; nor could I make out that these varia- 
tions were dependent on age. They seem to me to be a matter 
of individual complexion, and certainly often coincide with differ- 
ences in the general tone of plumage. 
THE PLATE is an extremely good one, but it was drawn 
from an European and zot an Indian specimen, and it shows 
the barrings on the lower neck and breast as far more pro- 
nounced than they ever are in Indian birds, and it exhibits the 
bills as a more or less orange yellow, which they never are 
in our birds. But some European birds do apparently have 
the lower surface very much banded and the bills orange yellow, 
and these are the birds that Naumann figures as the present 
species, or as the Common Grey (or Grey Lag) Goose. His 
accuracy is unimpugnable, and he says distinctly—“ bill orange, 
without black, naked eyelids and feet pale flesh colour.” The 
birds are of much the same dimensions, but the yellow-billed 
birds weigh up to considerably over 12 lbs. English.* 
Macgillivray gives the bill as yellowish orange. Yarrell, how- 
ever, gives it a pink flesh colour, and this is the colour of the 
bill of the Lincolnshire specimen, figured by Dresser, which, in 
every respect, perfectly represents the birds so common in 
Upper India. I may say pretty positively that with us the orange- 
billed form does not occur. I have shot some thousands of 
Geese in India, and I have never met with any Goose of this 
type, with the bill coloured otherwise than as above described. 
It may be that there are two distinct species ; if so the name 
cinereus applies to the orange-billed race, for Meyer says, “ bill 
pale orange red.” On the other hand our pinky-billed species, 
yubrirostris of Hodgson, is the Aunser vulgaris of Pallas, who 
says, “bill, feet, and eyelids reddish.” 
Whether the two forms are specifically distinct, I cannot say ; 
but it must be clearly borne in mind that the form we get in 
* 12 Leipsig Pfund are equal to about 12°4 lbs. Avoirdupois. 
