124 THE CONDOR Vol. XVI be accounted for by the fact that no distinction was made in the comparison of old and juvenile birds. It is difficult to tell the young from adults when the birds are in skin form, but in the flesh the difference is usually fairly apparent. In the adults of all geese the leathering of the neck is fuller, the knob on ?he carpus is more prom- inent, and the whole plumage has a distinct gloss seldom seen in the young bird. Could the tests of the measurement of culmen, and the comparative measurements of tarsus and middle toe, be applied to a series of geese where only young could be compared with young, and adults with adults, it is the writer's belief, based on the handling of many geese in the flesh, that there would prove to be three distinct species--not subspecies--canadensis, hutchinsi. and minima? with occidentalis as a subspecies of canadensis. If the four birds accepted as subspecies occupied distinct breeding ranges, impinging only on their boundaries, the theory of their specific identity might be a sound one, but in the case of canadensis, hutchinsi? and minima their breeding ranges overlap to such an extent that they cannot be treated as cli- matic 'subspecies. In the field minima seems to be a very distinct species; in flight the neck looks shorter and the wings longer in proportion than in any other goose, not even excepting the Brant. It also has an unique and peculiar cackling or chuckling cry, ouly rarely heard, in addition to the ordinary high pitched "honk". Was this known to Mr. Ridgway when he gave it its com- mon name ? It is unfortunate that Mr. Swarth had to work on material, the bulk of which is from California. IIe has evidently not seen the breeding canadensis from the coast strip south of the breeding range of occidentalis. This is largely a non-migratory l?ird, nearly as dark as occidentalis, the under parts being dark. gray-brown, but the measurements fully up to the maximum o B. canadensis canadensis. This bird the present writer long took to be occidentalis until specimens were carefully measured. The next problem was-to identify occidentalis among the numbers of hutchinsi that he had a chance to examine. The con- clusion he was forced to was that as far as southern British Columbia was con- cerned occidentalis was a myth, even though so eminent an authority as Mr. Brewster identified skins sent to him as of that subspecies. The whole prob- lem is a very difficult one and much work remains to be done on the group, but Mr. Swarth's treatise should serve as a basis, a sort of causeway over a hitherto impassable morass. Okanagan Landing? British Columbia? January 25, THE BIRDS OF TETON AND NORTHERN LEWIS AND CLARK COUNTIES, iVIONTANA By ARETAS A. SAUNDERS WITH TEN' PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR ETON COUNTY lies in the northern half of Montana and considerably west of the center of the state, its northern border formed by the Cana- dian boundary, and its western by the continental divide. Although in the western half of Montana, its bird-life is more nearly like that of the east-
