136 Dr. John Berry 07% Llbi3,

This series does not differ from southern European birds in fresh plumage. Wings of males 79-84 and of females 76- 82 mm.

Occurs in the foothills of the Great Atlas and common round Mogador and south along the coast to Agadir. A few in the Sous Valley in November, possibly migrants, as Lynes never observed it in spring. Common a t Oulmes (December).

A bird of medium and low elevations.

1 To be continued.]

VI.-Notes on Two Unusual Bean-Geese from the Severn Estuary. By JOHN BERRY, Ph.D., M.B.0 .U.

ABOUT the year 1912 a small gaggle of Bean-Geese, probably a single family party, visited the Severn Estuary between Arlingham and Berkeley. Two of these birds were shot and were given to Mr. L. Purcell, a local professional wildfowler, who had them stuffed for use as decoys. In 1920 one of these stuffed specimens was given by Purcell to Mr. J. C. M. Nichols, by whom it has been carefully preserved. Of the other, only the head remains. It was obtained from Purcell in 1938 by Dr. 0. H. Wild, and is now in his collection. For over a century the Severn Estuary has been a noted haunt of large flocks of Wild Geese. Bean-Geese have been reported from time to time, but in no case did it appear possible to discover any example of this species which had been preserved. It was when making a definite attempt to do this that the Rev. F. L. Blathwayt heard of Mr. Purcell's two specimens and succeeded in tracing the remains to their present owners.

Mr. Nichols has been collecting Geese for many years, but the specimen given to him by Purcell is by far the largert Bean-Goose which he has ever seen. He estimates that when in the flesh it must have weighed ten pounds or more. As the writer has been fortunate in being able to examine EL con- siderable number of Bean-Goose skins, Mr. Nichols and Dr. Wild kindly arranged for him to examine the remains of these two birds.

So far as can be ascertained, these Bean-Geese were not only of exceptional size for this country, but were among the largest

1940.1 T'wo Unuswcl Bean-Geese. 137

.ever recorded in any part of Europe. Moreover, the size and shape of the bills, particularly of the lower mandible, differed from those of normal European Bean-Geese. The dimensions (in mm.) of the stuffed bird were :-

Total length (as stuffed) ................ 870 Wing (curved). ......................... 520 Tarsus ................................ 81

'The measurements of the two bills were :- Stuffed bird.

Culmen .............................. 66 Gape to tip of bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Depth of upper mandible (angle to gape). 29 Max. visible depth of lower mandible. . . . 10.5 Nail ................................ 10x18 Teeth (not easy to count at back) . . . . . . 25/25 Width of orange band on culmen . . . . . . 10 Width of orange band on side of mandible. 14

Head. 76 78 31 10

19x16

15 22

28/28

Agreement has not yet been reached as to the nomenclature d' the different subspecies of the Bean-Geese, nor, indeed, as to the number of distinct geographical races which can be dis- tinguished. Yet from studies of characters and dimensions, eapecially of material collected on the breeding grounds, it ha5 been possible to achieve considerable progress in this direction. A list is given a t the end of this paper of the more important contributions to which reference has been made in the present instance. These various authorities quote somewhat differing measurements as limits of the geographical races which they distinguish. But the two Severn Bean-Geese seem scarcely to come within any of the descriptions of types which have occurred a t all regularly west of the Ural Mountains.

Among the skins of European Bean-Geese examined by the writer was a male of unusual size shot a t Tata, in Hungary, on 19 December, 1934. This bird, now in the Royal Hungarian Institute, exceeded the maximum dimensions quoted by Niethammer (6) (1938) for central Europe; but it differed from the two Severn Geese in not having the massive bill with a heavy, swollen, lower mandible which characterizes the latter. The chief dimensions (in mm.) of the Tata bird

138 Dr. John Berry on [Ibis,

were :-Length 900 ; wing 540 ; tarsus 89 ; bill, culmen 68, depth to gape 27, nail 17 x 16, teeth 24/25.

In 1932, Dr. A. Tugarinov (7) published in his ‘ Birds of Soviet Russia ’ an excellent survey of the Geese of the type Anser fabalis. This gave the conclusions reached as a result of the exhaustive researches of the late Professor P. Sushkin, which were continued by Dr. B. K. Stegmann and by Dr. Tugari- nov himself. It is to be regretted that as Dr. Tugarinov’s work was published only in Russian, and soon went out of print, few British ornithologists are acquainted with it. However, a useful summary in German of the section on Bean- Geese was given in a paper by Dr. H. Grote (4) in 1935. These workers recognize five separable geographical races of the type Anser fabalis (=Melanonyx fabalis of Russian authors) apart from A . brachyrhynchus, which they consider specifically distinct.

The Yellow-billed Bean-Goose breeds in the taiga (wooded zone) of northern Europe from Scandinavia to the plains of the Ob, Taz, and upper Yenisei Rivers, but also to some extent on Kolguev Island and Novaya Zemlya. The winter migration is south-westwards throughout Europe from Britain to the Caspian.

The West Siberian Bean-Goose breeds on the north Siberian tundra from Novaya Zemlya and Vaygach Island to the Taimyr Peninsula. In winter most of these birds migrate south-eastwards up the valleys of the Ob and Yenisei to Lake Baikal and Mongolia, at times con- tinuing as far as the upper course of the Amur River and even across the Gobi into China. Some flocks, however, migrate south-westwards to south-east Europe. The writer considers that skins from Transylvania were referable to this race, and a s a scarce migrant it may even occur regularly as far west as the British Isles.

(3) A . f. serrirostris (Swinhoe). The Eastern Bean-Goose breeds on the northern tundra from the Lena River to the Gulf of Anadyr. On migration it crosses Transbaikalia and the Stanovoi Mountains to spend winter in China, Manchuria, Sakhalin, and Japan.

These races are as follows :- (1) A . f. fabalis (Latham).

(2) A . f. segetum (Gmelin).

1940.1 Two Unusual Bean-Geese. 139

(4) A . f. sibiricus (Alpherhky) or, more correctly, A . f. middendo@i (Severtzov) . Middendorf’s Bean-Goose nests throughout the forest regions from the head-waters of the Viliui River east to Kamchatka and south as far as the Altai and Sayan Mountains in northern Mongolia. The winter quarters are still unknown.

(5 ) A . f . neglectus (Sushkin). Sushkin’s Bean-Goose has occurred in flocks on migration and in winter in Samara, Pensa, Rasan, Poltava, Ufa, and Hungary ; also in Turkestan, Persia, and India ; but its breeding grounds have not yet been found. It is thought that they may be on some of the almost unexplored islands of the Arctic Ocean.

Dementieff (3) (1936) follows Tugarinov, with the exceptiom that he regards A . brachyrhynchus merely as a geographical race of A . fabalis, and he does not accept A . f . segetum and A . f . neglectus as recognizable types. Buturlin (2) (1935), on the other hand, thought that four distinct species should be accepted, two of these being further subdivided into seven recognizable geographical races. But in a letter to the writer he emphasized that Geese which breed in dist,ricts where the nesting territory of two distinct racial types adjoirr. usually exhibit characters intermediate between these two main types. Thus the precise identification of such birds is seldom possible. Tugarinov (7) (1932) pointed out in his Introduction that this is almost a zoological generality. He gives as an example the Black Scoter of the Nordenskjold Sea, which is intermediate between M . n. nigra and M . n. americana. Even accepted species as distinct as C m u s orn nix and C . mone can produce an indekite series of inter- mediate fertile hybrids where the nesting territories of the two overlap.

The two Severn Bean-Geese seem intermediate between the Yellow-billed Bean, A . f. fabalis, and Middendorf‘s Bean, A . f. middenhr$i. As already mentioned, their dimensions are altogether outside the maxima quoted for European specimens 0fA.f. fabalis. They come within the dimensions of A . f. middendorjiii given by Buturlin (2) (1932), Dementieff (3) (1936), and several other authors, but the bills are smaller

140 On Two Unusual Bean-Geese. !Ibis,

than the minima quoted for this race by AlpherBky (1) (1905) and Tugarinov (7) (1932). In adults of A . f. fabalis, the extent of the yellow coloration of the bill, while extremely variable, is seldom, if ever, as restricted and as sharply defined as in the Severn birds. This character, however, seems typical of A . f. middewlor-i. The tundra-breeding forms A . f . segetum and A . f . sPr9irostri.s of the high north are characterized, inter a&, by an elongated oval nail and by the number of teeth in the upper mandible being 22 or less (rarely 23). It does not seem possible to refer the Severn Geese to either of these races.

It would thus appear that a breeding ground of Bean-Geese of the Severn type should be expected somewhere in the forest region of western Asiatic Russia. A single skin and a trunkless head are inadequate material with which to work. Also it will be appreciated that even if several specimens of the same type had been obtained, there would be other possible explana- tions of their presence in Britain than that a flock of Asiatic Geese suddenly should have undertaken so unusual a migration. Nevertheless, the remains of these two birds from the Severii Estuary are interesting, and the fact of their occurrence should be put on record.

REFERENCES. (1) A L P H E R ~ Y , S. (l905).-' The Geese of Europe and Asia'. (2) BUTUILLIN, S. (1933).-A x-etbsi lbdfajtak szeinl8je. Iq t s i ln ,

(3) DEMENTIEFF, G. (1936).-Essai cle Revisioii des Formes ( i t3 l'Oiw

(4) GROTE, H. (l935).-A vet& ludfajthk ismerteto jegyei. ilptsilte,

(5) HARTERT, E. (1912-21).-' Dicl Togel d. Paliiarktischen Fauna '. ii.

(6) NIETRA&IMER, G. (1938).--' Handbuch tler Ueutschm Vogelkundc ',

(7) TUGARINOV, A. (1932)).-' Ptitzi S.S.S.R. ; Utki, Goosi, Lyehetli i

xxxviii.-xli. p. 219.

des Moissons, Answ fnbalis Latham. Alauda, viii. no. 2, 13. 16!4.

xxaviii.-xli. p. 211.

p. 1283.

ii. p. 402.

Krokhali ', p. 63.