90 



YOUNG OF THE SNOW GOOSE. 



^The length of the bird represented in our plate, was twenty 

 eight inches, extent four feet eight inches ; bill gibbous at the 

 sides both above and beloAV, exposing the teeth of the upper and 

 lower mandibles, and furnished with a nail at the tip on both ; 

 the whole being of a light reddish purple or pale lake, except 

 the gibbosity, which is black, and the two nails, which are of a 

 pale light blue ; nostril pervious, an oblong slit, placed nearly in 

 the middle of the upper mandible; irides dark brown; whole head 

 and half of the neck white; rest of the neck and breast, as well as 

 upper part of the back, of a purplish brown, darkest where it joins 

 the white ; all the feathers being finely tipt with pale brown ; whole 

 wing coverts very pale ash, or light lead color, primaries and se- 

 condaries black; tertials long, tapering, centered with black, edged 

 with light blue, and usually fall over the wing ; scapulars cinere- 

 ous brown ; lower parts of the back and rump of the same light 

 ash as the wing coverts ; tail rounded, blackish, consisting of six- 

 teen feathers edged and tipt broadly with white ; tail coverts white; 

 belly and vent whitish, intermixed with cinereous; feet and legs of 

 the same lake color as the bill. 



This specimen was a female; the tongue was thick and fleshy, 

 armed on each side with thirteen strong bony teeth, exactly simi- 

 lar in appearance as well as in number, to those on the tongue of 

 the Snow Goose ; the inner concavity of the upper mandible was 

 also studded with rows of teeth. The stomach was extremely 

 muscular, filled with some vegetable matter, and clear gravel. 



With this another was shot, differing considerably in its mark- 

 ings, having little or no white on the head, and being smaller; its 

 general color dark brown intermixed with pale ash, and darker 

 below, but evidently of the same species with the other. 



