or crest, consisting of elegant black feathers, covers the Head. The White points or spots round the whole body are variegated, as it were, with a shade."— Willughby, p. 163. A white variety is not uncommon, and is asserted by a Yorkshire correspondent of the "Gardeners' Chronicle" to be equally hardy and profitable with the usual kind; but the peculiar beauty of the original plumage is, surely, ill exchanged for a dress of not the purest white. It is doubtful for how long either this or the former one would remain permanent; probably but for few generations. Pied birds blotched with patches of white are frequent, but are not comparable in point of beauty with those of the original wild colour. The figure in Sir W. Jardine's "Naturalist's Library" is evidently taken from one of the pied varieties. The ancients seem to have been acquainted with two or three species, the description of which hardly answers to those we know at the present day.

"Africana est, quam plerique Numidicam dicunt, Meleagridi similis, nisi quod rutilam galeam, et cristam capite gerit, quæ utraque sunt in Meleagridi cærulea."Columella, lib. viii. c. 2.

"The Africana, which most people call a Numidica, is like a Meleagris, except that it bears on its head a red helmet and comb, both which are blue in the Meleagris."

The head and face of our birds are remarkable. The scarlet wattles, naked skin, distinct mark of the eye-brow, bright glancing eyes, and comical quick expression, make, at a front view, a perfect miniature of a clown dressed and painted for the circus or the pantomime.

I am informed that gun-dogs set or point at GuineaFowls that happen to stray in the fields, as if they were Partridges.

THE CHINA GOOSE (CYCNÖIDES)

THERE is a venerable joke about a Spanish Don who knocked at a cottage door to ask a night's lodging. "Who's there? What do you want?" said the inmates. "Don Juan José Pedro Anthonio Alonzo Carlos Geronimo, &c., &c., &c., wants to sleep here to-night.' "Get along with you," was the reply; "how should we find room here for so many fellows?" The China Goose is in the same position as the Spanish Don. It has names enough to fill a menagerie. China Goose, Knob Goose, Hong Kong Goose, Asiatic Goose, Swan Goose, Chinese Swan (Cygnus sinensis, CUVIER), Guinea Goose, Spanish Goose, Polish Goose, Anas and Anser cycnöides, Muscovy Goose, and probably more besides.

Confusion, therefore, and perplexity, are the certain lot of whosoever attempts to trace this bird in our books of natural history. Its place of birth has excluded it from all monographs or limited ornithologies. In very few systematic works is it mentioned at all, which is remarkable of a bird so striking in its appearance, which there is every reason to believe must have been domesticated for a long period. The uncertainty that has existed as to its correct name and really native country may be one cause of this. Like the Jews, or the Gipsies, it has not been allowed to claim a place among the natives of any one region; and like many others furnished with a variety of aliases, it ends by being altogether excluded from society.

The old writers call it the Guinea Goose, for the excellent reason, as Willughby hints, that in his time it was the fashion to apply the epithet "Guinea" to everything of foreign and uncertain origin. Thus, what we at this day erroneously call the Muscovy Duck was

then called the Guinea Duck. Not long back it was common with us to refer every strange or new object to a French source. Spanish Goose is another title, probably as appropriate as Guinea Goose. Bewick has given an admirable woodcut of this bird, but he has evidently selected the gander, which is taller and more erect than the female, though to both may be applied Willughby's description, "a stately bird, walking with its head and neck decently erected." Bewick calls it the Swan Goose. The tubercle at the base of the bill, the unusual length of neck, and its graceful carriage in the water, give it some claim to relationship with the aristocracy of lake and river. Cuvier (Griffiths' edition), goes further, calls it at once Cygnus sinensis, Chinese Swan, and says that this and the Canada Goose cannot be separated from the true Swans. A Goose, however, it decidedly is, as is clear from its terrestrial habits, its powerful bill, its thorny tongue, and its diet of grass. And therefore we have determined to call it the China Goose, concluding that Cuvier is right about its home, and other authors about its goosehood.

There is something in the aspect of this creature, the dark-brown stripe down its neck, its small bright eye, its harsh voice, its ceremonious strut, and its affectation of seldom being in a hurry, which seem to say that it came from China. It would perfectly harmonise in a picture of Chinese still life; or in a Chinese garden, with artificially arranged rocks, dwarf trees, crooked trellises, and zigzag pathways; or, in a more extended landscape, it would group well on a broad river, beside a boat filled with shaven fishermen, with their trained cormorants and pig-tailed children. If it does come from China, it has no doubt been domesticated for many hundred years, perhaps as long as the Peacock or common Fowl. evident proof of this is the large number of eggs they may be made to lay by an increased supply of nourishing food. This is very different from the disposition to "lay everlastingly," as seen in the Guinea-fowl, and some varieties

An

of the domestic Hen-the black Spanish, for instance : because the China Goose does in the end feel a strong desire to incubate as soon as her protracted laying is done, whereas entire exemption from the hatching fever is the great merit of the "everlasting layers." If liberally furnished with oats, boiled rice, &c., the China Goose will in the spring lay from twenty to thirty eggs before she begins to sit, and again in the autumn, after her moult, from ten to fifteen more. I have never observed

any disposition to sit after the autumnal laying. It is not, as in the Guinea-fowl, a spontaneous flow of eggs, for which the ordinary diet of the creature is sufficient, but is as much dependent on feeding as the fatness to which a bullock is brought. A Goose that I supplied with as much oats as she could eat, besides grass, potatoes, and cabbages, laid eggs larger than ordinary; one of them (with a double yolk) weighed seven and a half ounces, nearly half a pound. I need hardly say that double-yolked eggs are very rare, except among birds that have been long domesticated.

Another proof is their deficient power of flight compared with the rest of their congeners, owing to the larger proportionate size of their bodies.* The common domestic Goose flies much more strongly than its brother from China. Indeed of all Geese this is the worst flyer. There is no occasion to pinion them. While the Canada Goose thinks little of a journey from the North Pole or thereabouts to Great Britain, while the Egyptian Goose pays us occasional visits from Africa, while the merry

* Professor Low, speaking of the effect of domestication on birds, says:-"They lose the power of flight by the increased size of their abdomen, and the diminished power of their pectoral muscles; and other parts of their body are altered to suit this conformation. All their habits change; they lose the caution and sense of danger which, in their native state, they possessed. The male no longer retires with a single female to breed, but becomes polygamous, and his progeny lose the power and the will to regain the freedom of their race.' -The Domesticated Animals of the British Islands, Introduction, p. liv.

little Laughing Goose, if tamed and allowed the use of its wings, is almost as much at ease in the air as a Pigeon, the China Goose can hardly manage to flutter across a lawn, to get out of the way of a frisky spaniel. "Said the Tame Goose to the Wild 6 one, on such a day I shall fly away.' Said the Wild Goose to the Tame one, 'I shall fly away on such a day, if it be the will of Allah. At the appointed time the Wild Goose performed her yearly migration: the Tame Goose cannot fly to this day." If China, instead of Egypt, had produced the above fable, we should believe that the Anas cycnöides was the vainful boastful bird.

The large number of eggs laid by these birds has led some persons to imagine that, like Guinea-fowls, they were inexhaustible, so that when at last the Goose did make her nest in earnest (which may be known by her mixing her own down with the straw), no eggs had been reserved for the poor thing to sit upon. The best plan is to date the eggs with a pencil, as they are laid, and to consume only those which are more than three weeks old. They are usually very late with their broods, but will rear them well enough if they are allowed to take their own time, and do it after their own manner. My China Goose has now (June 1848) laid thirty eggs, without intimating any intention of sitting; but she has annually brought up a family for the last five years, and I doubt not she will again this season. When the fit comes, she will take possession of her milk-pan, which stands in a large boarded coop, like a dog-kennel. Once duly enthroned there, she will maintain her seat with proper perseverance and tenacity. A neighbour discarded his China Goose because she was always found standing over her eggs, instead of sitting upon them. But those were only the preliminaries, the overture to the performance. Hurry no man's cattle; and you may as well try to hurry the Emperor, as the Goose, of China. Their time of incubation is five weeks. I have always found them steady sitters when they once begin in earnest, and exemplary