THE DIMENSIONS of my three birds, measured in the flesh, were
as follows :—
Length, 26 to 2775; expanse, 52 to 55-5 ; wing, 15
t 0 1S'75 ; wings, when closed, reached exactly to the end
of tail ; tail from vent, 5-2 to 6; bill at front, including nail,
1 7 to I 75 ; from gape, l'87 to 2'0; tarsus, 245 to 2 7 5 ; weight,
4 lbs 5 ozs. to 5 lbs 2 ozs.
Legs and feet bright orange ; nails pinky or greyish white ;
bill pale livid fleshy, in one tinged orange on the culmen,
in another similarly tinged on the nares and base of lower
mandible; nail whitish or pale yellowish white; irides pale
brown.
European specimens, that I possess, seem to be larger, the
wings running to 17 inches.
TLIE PLATE, taken from two of the Jhehim specimens, is
admirable ; O si sic omncs \
Specimens, however, vary a good deal ; one, which appears
to be an adult male, has the whole chin white, as is also the
broad band on the forehead and on each side of the upper
mandible. A female has only one single feather white at the
point of the chin, and the white band at each side of the
upper mandible is much parrower; a third, also a female,
but as I take it a young one, has the head and neck much
paler brown, no white at all on the chin, and the band, both
on the forehead and at the sides of the upper mandible, very
narrow. The lower surface, too, varies very much ; in one
it is pale greyish white, with only a few comparatively small
black mottled patches on the abdomen ; in another, the
mottled patches are so numerous and large that the black
decidedly preponderates over the greyish white ; in a third,
there is scarcely anything but black. In one specimen, which
I have from Oudh, the white frontal band is 115 broad; in
the adult male above-mentioned, it is 0'85 broad ; in the
adult female it is oC, and in the young female only C 3 . In
all these it is a band stretching straight across the whole forehead,
not running up on to the crown in a broad longitudinal
band as it docs in the Dwarf Goose.