YOUNG OF THE SNOW GOOSE. 
286 
mation of the bill; for even in their description of the Snow 
Goose, neither that nor the internal peculiarities, are at all men- 
tioned. 
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 below, 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 colour, pri- 
maries and secondaries black; tertials long, tapering, centred with 
black, edged with light blue, and usually fall over the wing; 
scapulars cinereous brown; lower parts of the back and rump 
of the same light ash as the wing coverts; tail rounded, black- 
ish, consisting of sixteen feathers edged and tipt broadly with 
white; tail coverts white; belly and vent whitish, intermixed 
with cinereous; feet and legs of the same lake colour as the bill. 
This specimen was a female; the tongue was thick and fleshy, 
armed on each side with thirteen strong bony teeth, exactly 
similar 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 
markings, having little or no white on the head, and being 
smaller; its general colour dark brown intermixed with pale 
ash, and darker below, but evidently of the same species with 
the other. 
