Alfred Newton

“ In Scotland this goose continues to breed sparingly in several parts of the Highlands and in certain of the Hebrides, the nests being generally placed in long heather, and the eggs seldom exceeding five or six in number. It is most likely the birds reared here that are from time to time obtained in England, for at the present day the grey lag goose, though once so numerous, is, and for many years has been, the rarest species of those that habitually resort to the British Islands. ”

“ An allied form, by some deemed a species, is B. leucopareia, which ranges over the western part of North America, and, though having 18 rectrices, is distinguished by a white collar round the lower part of the neck. The most diverse species of this group of geese are the beautiful B. ruficollis, a native of north-eastern Asia, which occasionally strays to western Europe, and has been obtained more than once in Britain, and that which is peculiar to the Hawaian archipelago, B. sandvicensis. ”

“ America possesses by far the greatest wealth of Anserine forms. Beside others, presently to be mentioned, its northern portions are the home of all the species of snow-geese belonging to the genus Chen. The first of these is C. hyperboreus, the snow-goose proper, a bird of large size, and when adult of a pure white, except the primaries, which are black. ”

“ In this the upper plumage is elongated, curled and spirally twisted, having their shaft transparent, and so thin that it often splits into fine filaments, which, remaining free for an inch or more, often coalesce again; [3] while the quills are aborted, so that the birds cannot fly. ”