CANADA GOOSE. 
175 
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, blackish, 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 fieshy, 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. 
256 . ANAS CANADENSIS , LINNAEUS AND WILSON. 
CANADA GOOSE. 
WILSON, PLATE LXVII. FIG. IV. EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 
This is the common wild goose of the United States, 
universally known over the whole country ; whose 
regular periodical migrations are the sure signals of 
returning spring, or approaching winter. The tracts 
of their vast migratory journeys are not confined to the 
sea coast, or its vicinity. In their aerial voyages to and 
from the north, these winged pilgrims pass over the 
