eries and Wildlife who called his attention to the grouse 
studies of McCullough and Grant in 1962 during dis- 
cussions of taxonomic problems in Canada geese. 
For logistic support and aid in collecting specimens, 
we are grateful to Harry G. Lumsden, John Lessard, and 
C. E. Perrie of the Ontario Department of Lands and 
Forests; Eugene F. Bossenmaier of the Manitoba Depart- 
ment of Mines and Natural Resources; and G. C. Wilson, 
Rocket Range Officer, National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration, at Churchill, Manitoba. Dr. F. Graham 
Cooch of the Canadian Wildlife Service advised us on 
the origin of the blue and lesser snow geese collected at 
Fort Severn, Ontario. 
We are indebted to Emil Marcusiu, University of 
Illinois, and Leland Herzberger, now with the U.S. Bu- 
reau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, for the excellence 
of their laboratory work. Dr. Robert E. Johnson, Dr. 
S. Charles Kendeigh, and Dr. C. Ladd Prosser of the 
University of Illinois kindly reviewed the manuscript. 
Photographs for the cover and Fig. 2 were made 
possible through the cooperation of James G. King and 
Harold H. Burgess of the U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries 
and Wildlife. 
STUDY AREAS, MATERIALS, AND METHODS 
The blue and lesser snow geese for which data on 
feather minerals are reviewed here breed adjacent to 
Hudson Bay at Cape Churchill, Manitoba, and on South- 
ampton Island, N.W.T. (Fig. 1). 
The Cape Churchill colony is unique in several re- 
spects. It is of very recent origin, possibly dating from 
1962 when Harry G. Lumsden and the senior author 
observed a few dozen birds in the area. We know of 
no records of the existence of a colony of appreciable 
size prior to that year. In 1966, aerial photographs of 
a large percentage of the flightless adults and their downy 
young, and estimates of the remainder, indicated that 
the colony contained 5,000-6,000 geese. The feeding 
range of this colony is restricted to a roughly triangular 
area that flanks Hudson Bay for a distance of about 
13 miles west of the Cape and extends for 7 miles 
south of it. 
All of the major colonies of lesser snow and blue 
geese in the Canadian Arctic occupy areas of earlier 
marine submergence, but they are locally situated either 
on braided river mouths or on delta islands. Although 
subject to tidal flooding along the seaward edges, these 
areas are constantly flushed by fresh water. In contrast, 
emergence of the Cape Churchill colony site from the 
waters of Hudson Bay may be as recent as 1,000 years 
ago.’ The area is low, subject to periodic extensive tidal 
flooding, and drained only by a few small streams. The 
‘Aerial observations indicated that the main feeding grounds 
of this colony lie well within the 25-foot elevation level (Cape 
Churchill Sheet, 54 K, 4 mile-1 inch topographic series, Cana- 
dian Department of Mines and Technical Surveys). This date 
assumes a rate of postglacial uplift of 75 centimeters per 100 
years (Barnett 1966). 
geese feed near the coast, both within the tidal zone and 
in the adjacent salt marsh. 
The soils of the area and the silt and clay sediments 
in which they developed are highly calcareous, having 
been derived from calcareous Silurian sedimentary rocks 
underlying the Cape. 
The blue and lesser snow geese that feed along the 
south coast of Hudson Bay each autumn in the vicinity 
of Fort Severn, Ontario, originate from two colonies on 
Southampton Island—one at the apex of East Bay and 
the other at the mouth of the Boas River which empties 
into the Bay of Gods Mercy (F. Graham Cooch, personal 
communication). Probably the wing samples that we 
studied from geese shot at Fort Severn chiefly represented 
the much larger, Boas River colony.? Geologically, 
both areas are similar, being underlain by limestone of 
Ordovician and Silurian ages (Armstrong 1947). Ac- 
cording to Manning (1942), the nests of. this colony 
“are situated almost entirely on grassy islands in the 
mouth of the Boas River. . . . At its mouth, the river 
is at least two miles wide, and in July is so shallow that 
it can be crossed in knee boots; but during the spring 
it is greatly swollen. On both banks the river is bounded 
by about eight miles of flat marshland which terminates 
in disintegrated limestone ridges.” 
In our studies only the vane portions of the primary 
feathers were used in the analyses because they were 
found to be more highly mineralized than the shaft. 
The basal quarter of the vane was also excluded because 
part of this portion of the feather is grown after the 
goose has regained the power of flight (Hanson 1962) 
and could possibly, although unlikely, have left the 
breeding or molting area. In this case it would be pos- 
sible for a somewhat different mineral pool to be in- 
corporated into the basal portion of the feathers. 
To facilitate washing, the remaining portions of the 
primary feathers were cut transversely into 14-inch 
pieces. ‘These were washed with distilled water by shak- 
ing in 250 ml conical flasks for at least 4 hours and then 
rinsed several times with distilled water. The flasks and 
contents were then drained of excess water and dried in 
an oven held at 60° C. for at least 24 hours. Approxi- 
mately 1 gram of the dried vane was trimmed free of 
the shaft and placed in a 50-ml Vycor crucible. 
Analytical determinations were performed with a 
Jarrell-Ash direct reading emission spectrograph on an 
acid solution (containing 4.5 percent HCl and 1.5 per- 
cent HNOs, both by volume, and 1 percent lithium as 
LiCl) of the dry-ashed (500° C.) sample. A rotating- 
disc solution technique with a-c spark excitation was used 
with lithium as an internal standard. The content of 
each element was estimated from working curves ob- 
tained from reference plant samples. 
* This feather collection undoubtedly contained primaries of 
a few geese from the colony at Eskimo Point. A definitive report 
on the biogeochemistry of all breeding colonies, based on birds 
collected either on their breeding grounds or banded there during 
the molt and shot elsewhere, is under preparation. 
