94 
YOUNG FEMALE SNOW GOOSE. 
JINM mPERBOREA. 
[Plate LXIX.— Fig. 5.] 
Anas carulescens, Gmel. Syst, I, p. 513, No, 12. — Ind. Orn. p. 836, No, 13. Blue-winged 
Goose^ Gen. Syn. III,/). 469, No, 28 ; Id, Sup. II, p, 346, No, 8. — Arct, Zool, No. 474. — 
Edwards,/)/. 152 . — UOye sauvage de la Baye de Hudson^ Briss. VI, p, 275, No. 5. — 
VOie des Esquimaux^ Buff. IX, p, 80. — Peale’s Museum^ No, 2636. 
THE full-pluinaged perfect male bird of this species has al- 
ready been figured in the preceding plate, and I now hazard a 
conjecture, founded on the best examination I could make of the 
young bird here figured, comparing it with the descriptions of the 
difierent accounts above referred to, that the whole of them have 
been taken from the various individuals of the present, in a greater 
or lesser degree of approach to its true and perfect colors.* 
These birds pass along our coasts, and settle in our rivers, 
every autumn; among thirty or forty there are seldom more than 
six or eight pure white, or old birds. The rest vary so much that 
no two are exactly alike ; yet all bear the most evident marks in 
the particular structure of their bills, &c. of being the same iden- 
tical species. A gradual change so great, as from a bird of this 
color to one of pure white, must necessarily produce a number of 
varieties, or differences, in the appearance of the plumage ; but the 
form of the bill and legs I'emain the same ; and any peculiarity in 
either is the surest mean we have to detect a species under all its 
various appearances. It is therefore to be regretted, that the au- 
thors above referred to in the synonymes, have paid so little atten- 
tion to the singular conformation of the bill ; for even in their 
* See note to Snow Goose, p. 79. 
