dish tinge, exactly as if they had been rubbed by the hair-dresser with the red rust of iron; and the bill, as is always the case with the young of the feathered race, is tender, soft, and compressible. On the other hand the A. cœrulescens comes down upon the Eastmain coast, also in perfectly distinct flocks, the young of a more diffused blue colour, as well as being of smaller size. The fullgrown blue wavy is besides somewhat larger than the white, and has its flesh most decidedly of a much fairer hue. In the spring, James's Bay is frequently crossed by both species, as far north as Capes James and Henrietta Marie, and occasionally two or three of the blue may be observed in a large flock of the white on the Albany or west shore. White again are seen mixed up to a certain extent with the full flocks of blue on the Eastmain. This is not singular, their cry being almost the same and their habits similar, and they are, it must be allowed, closely allied species. According to Indian report, a great breeding ground for the blue wavy is the country lying in the interior of the north-east point of Labrador, Cape Dudley Digges. Extensive swamps and impassable bogs prevail there; and the geese incubate on the more solid and the driest tufts dispersed over the morass, safe from the approach of man, or any other than a winged enemy. Neither fox nor wolverine can penetrate to them, nor pass over the deceitful quick bogs to disturb their quiet. The Anser Gambelii, or white fronted goose, called by some the laughing goose, is seldom seen in the southern part of Hudson's Bay. At York Factory they are less rare, but at Churchill frequent enough. I am disposed to believe that this goose is more an inhabitant of Central and Western America during the winter months than of the eastern board. Proceeding northwards, therefore, in the end of April and early part of May, it comes upon the coast of Hudson's Bay towards York Factory, and is scarcely seen in James's Bay. I have not been able to ascertain whether any detachments are met with on the Atlantic coast of Labrador. Do they not feed on the productions of dry downs, and barren and rocky country, in preference to the swamp grasses and algæ? On the Lower Columbia, and in Oregon or the Willamette valley, they abound with other geese, sometimes in nearly equal proportions, and the snow goose still delighting to keep the sea coast, while the A. Gambelii and the grey geese take to the rivers and lakes of the interior. These are seldom frozen to the southward of latitude 45°, and very severe weather only requires from this kind of game in that quarter a slight removal of one or two degrees to the southward. Of all the geese I have enumerated, the Anser cærulescens, or blue wavy, appears to be the least known in the settled and civilized portions of North America. In May it frequents only James's Bay and the Eastmain of Labrador, and it is probably the case that its hatching ground is on the north-west extremity of that peninsula, and the opposite and scarcely known coast of Hudson's Straits. In the autumn their bands, increased six or sevenfold by the young, return by the same route, but where they winter is the query. I have not seen them on the Columbia nor on the north-west coast. Do they adopt the seaboard on a lower latitude? Are they to be found in winter retreat in Southern California and Mexico? It is very difficult to form anything like an accurate idea of the numbers of the various species of geese that have just been passed under review. Of the quantity shot at particular points where they become an article of provisions, we may arrive at a wide but still a better estimate. Seventeen to twenty thousand geese are sometimes killed by the Albany Indians in the autumn or fall of and ten thousand or more in the spring, making a total for these coast Crees alone of at least..... the year, the Moose Indians as killing at all seasons....... 30,000 Not speaking so certainly of other natives, I would place 10,000 Rupert's River natives..... 8,000 6,000 Eastmain and to the north, including Esquimaux......... The Severn coast I cannot compute as yielding less than. 10,000 The York Factory and Churchill Indians, with Esquimaux beyond, must dispose of...... 10,000 Making a total of geese killed on the coast of........... 74,000 As many geese must die wounded, and others are got hold of by the foxes and wolverines, we may safely allow the total loss to the flocks while running the fiery gauntlet as equivalent to 80,000. I was at one time inclined to believe that two-thirds of this number was, or might be, the proportion for the autumn hunt, but it is probably nearer three-fourths, and we have thus 60,000 in round numbers brought down from the newly-fledged flocks, as they pass southernward along the bay. I have lately been informed by an old and experienced hunter, that he believes that for every goose that is killed, above twenty must leave the bay without scaith, as although there is sometimes destruction dire among some lots that approach the gun, and that feed in quarters frequented by hunters, yet innumerable families of them alight on remote and quiet feeding ground, remain there unmolested, and take wing when the cold sets in, with their numbers intact. I must allow the correctness of this remark, and the deduction to be drawn from it is, that 1,200,000 geese leave their breeding grounds by the Hudson's Bay line of march for the genial south. Of the numbers to the westward along the arctic coast, that wend their way to their winter quarters straight across the continent, we can form but a very vague opinion, but computing it at twothirds or more of the quantity supposed to leave the eastern part of the arctic coast, we cannot have less than two millions of geese, composing the numerous battalions which pass over the continent between the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, borne aloft generally like the scud, and as swiftly hastened on, by the 'force of the boreal blast. I ought to observe that the Brant geese, Bernicla Brenta, are not included in the above estimate. They are pretty numerous on the Atlantic coast, but are quite neglected by the Indians in general of Hudson's Bay. Two small species of south-west habitat, the Dendrocygna Autumnalis and D. fulva never come north, as far as I know. I have never seen the first, but have shot one out of a pair of the latter on the banks of the Columbia, above Okanagan. This I daresay is usually its limit to the north, and I believe it has never been seen to the eastward of the great stony ridge. Neither of these elegant little geese ever visit Hudson's Bay. ARTICLE XXV-On the occurrence of Graptolites in the base of the Lower Silurian. By E. BILLINGS, F.G.S., Geological Survey of Canada. In an excellent work upon the Lower Silurian rocks of Ehstland in Russia, by M. FRIEDRICH SCHMIDT,* the following groups are made out and well authenticated by copious lists of fossils from every division. * Untersuchungen über die Silurische Formation von Ehstland NordLivland und Oesel. Von Mag. FRIEDRICK SCHMIDT. 8vo. pp. 250. With maps. Dorfrat, 1858. There is little doubt but that Schmidt's Zones, 1, 2, 3 are the equivalents of all the North American rocks from the base of the Chazy limestone to the top of the Hudson River. Schmidt, Eichwald and others have lately greatly added to the number of species in these rocks. In the lists of fossils given by Schmidt in the work cited there are thirty-one species recognized as occurring in the Lower Silurian of America from the Chazy upwards. None of them occur below the Vaginatenkalk in Russia, and none of them below the Chazy in America. In Ehstland the Cystidean Sphæronites Leuchtenbergii or S. pomum occurs in (1). Echinosphærites aurantium in (1), and E. aranea in (1). These represent the American Chazy genera Malocystites and Palæocystites. The genus Bolboporites is confined to (1) in Ehstland and to the Chazy in Canada. The genus Illanus is most abundant in both countries in the same formations. Of the two Russian species of Maclurea, one is found in (1) and the other in (2, a). Ecculiomphalus Scoticus occurs in (1), and E. septiferus in (1, a) The Orthoceratites, with large lateral siphuncles, also abound more in the base of the Russian limestones than in the upper strata. Taking all these facts together it seems highly probable that Schmidt's No. 1 represents the Chazy and Black River of North America. The "Chloritische Kalk," or Chloritic limestone, seems to represent the Calciferous sandrock in part. This rock consists of a calcareous sandstone, with green grains and small globular concretions. In some localities such as at Reval, Pöddis, Chudleigh, and Narwa, it becomes a magnesian limestone. In lithological characters it therefore resembles the Calciferous sandrock, which, in the western or undisturbed portion of Canada, abounds in magnesian strata; and in the eastern, where it is expanded to a great thickness by the addition of slates and sandstones holds much chlorite where partially metamorphosed. The fossils cited by Schmidt are Orthis calligramma, O. extensa, O. parva, O. obtusa, Orthisina plana, Rhynconella nucella, and fragments of trilobites of the genera Illænus and Asaphus. In the limestones of Point Levi and Phillipsburgh we have three species scarcely distinguishable from O. parva, O. obtusa, and O. plana. So far as we can judge from external characters R. nucella is a Camerella, differing from C. calcifera in having the beaks closely incurved. The aspect of the Calciferous Brachiopods, so far as they are known, is more like that of the same group of fossils in the Chloritic limestone of Russia than that of any other formation. The THONSCHIEFER or clay slate lying next below the Chloritic limestone is for us a most interesting formation, as it proves that in Russia there is (in or near the horizon of the Calciferous Sandrock) a ZONE OF GRAPTOLITES. It is described as a bituminous clay-slate, or alum-slate, with no fossils except traces of Obolus and an abundance of graptolites. Of these latter Schmidt identifies the following: Graptolithus Sedgewickii. (Portlock.) Dictyonema flabelliformis. (Eichwald.) It is not easy to identify species of graptolites, but with respect to the above it should be borne in mind that G. serratulus is a remarkable form consisting of two stipes diverging at an obtuse angle; and so Schmidt describes the Russian specimens. In New York it occurs at Norman's kill, associated with another species of the same type G. divaricatus. (Hall.) Schmidt may be wrong as to the perfect identity of the species, but his description shows clearly that his specimens must belong to the same group of graptolites. G. Sedgewickii is found in Dumfrieshire in Scotland in the Lower Llandeilo slates, far below the horizon of the Hudson River Group.D. flabelliformis very closely resembles a Quebec species. Setting aside all questions as to the identity of the species, it is an interesting fact that a naturalist in Russia should find below rocks which represent the limestones of the upper half of the Champlain group, a |