unsuspected first-class bird, all ready disciplined for full liberty and domestication, its merits and claims could hardly be discovered in the restraint of a menagerie: its prolific powers would certainly be cramped and checked. On the other hand, who, seeing the Water-hens there, and knowing their familiar, approximately-domestic habits, in situations of less restraint, would suspect how invincibly they resist all real domestication?-being, as the Rev. R. Lubbock says, in his delightful "Fauna of Norfolk," "a very difficult bird to retain in captivity, even when deprived of the power of flight. A walled-in garden has proved insufficient. The trees against the wall are made use of, and the captive claws up by degrees to the top, tumbles down upon the other side, and walks off with the air of a Jack Sheppard."

Much ornithological information has of late been obtained, though unfortunately little has been published, by gentlemen who have the means of giving full scope to a few favourites; and if the Societies in question are anxious to effect one of the objects of their institution, namely, the domestication of new and valuable birds and animals, they must enlist the aid of the educated Amateur, the resident Squire, the intelligent and influential Steward, the Farmer, and the country Clergyman.

The White-fronted Goose is an excellent example of our second class, and well deserves the patronage of those who have even a small piece of grass. Its natural history in a wild state is fully detailed in Mr. Yarrell's valuable "British Birds; " the figure also is very good, though it is a pity that a pair of Geese were not given; but as the works of that gentleman, like every other original book on the subject, have been largely drawn upon, I refrain from borrowing what he has written, particularly as the object of this volume is, not to encroach upon the department of the systematic naturalist, but merely to state what has been observed of birds that have been reclaimed.

The first impression of every one who saw the Whitefronted Goose in confinement, would be that it could not

be trusted with liberty; and the sight of it exercising its wings at its first escape would make its owner despair of recovering it. A pair of young ones that were bred in this country were kindly supplied to me, and though they were evidently not wild, their friskiness and vivacity were such that it appeared best to shorten the quill feathers of one wing, and so deprive them of the power of flight till their next moult. Long before that time, however, their confidence and attachment removed all hesitation as to the future. Now, at the most distant sound of my voice, they will come flying, like Pigeons, to alight at my feet ; and occasionally, particularly in winter and spring, perform graceful evolutions in the air, that show great power of wing and enjoyment in its exercise. They are perfectly unrestrained, except that the kitchen-garden is forbidden to them. During the severe weather last winter, (1846-7), while the herbage was buried deep under the snow, we feared they might be tempted to join some of their travelling relations that now and then passed overhead; but we swept a spot bare in the orchard, to amuse them with the idea of grass, threw down a few Savoy cabbages, gave them a little extra corn, and though they would fly over the house to get at a spring where the water was still unfrozen, they showed no wish to seek their fortunes elsewhere, or desert their old companion, a China Goose, who could only proceed on foot to take her draught at the brook.

We have now had them more than three years. In the spring of 1846 the Goose laid some eggs in an exposed spot, and dropped one or two others here and there, which were added to them, and she then sat as well as Goose could sit. But owing to the persecutions of an ill-natured Canada Gander, whose delight it was to drive her from her nest, and waylay and beat her as she was returning to it from grazing, the eggs were all addled, and the poor bird, for some time afterwards, showed her dejection and disappointment. Her mate did what he could to protect her from the assaults of her enemy, but

his inferior size and strength rendered him powerless. She did not produce a second laying, as is the case with many birds under similar circumstances. In the meanwhile, the truculent Canadian has been banished, and this spring (1847) she selected a better place for her nest. She scratched a hollow in the ground, at the edge of a grass walk, under a whitethorn, about eighteen inches above the surface of the water. The eggs were removed as laid, and, when she began sitting, restored to her, with a bunch of straw, which she arranged according to her own pleasure, and with which she could cover her eggs whenever she had occasion to leave them. She began

sitting on the 7th of April; on the 7th of May two very pretty Goslings came forth, one of which promised to be white; the next day they were missing, and the ratcatcher explained the cause of their disappearance by extracting an enormous rat from a hole immediately under the nest. The remaining eggs proved unfertile; doubtless from the Gander being permitted to enjoy the society of the above-mentioned China Goose. After the loss of her young, and the abstraction of her worthless eggs, she still persevered in sitting with vain expectation on the empty To prevent this, we filled the hollow with thorns. She then betook herself to watch the success of her rival, the China Goose, who was still sitting. When the little ones came forth from their shelly prison, she assisted in affording them a mother's care, leading them to the tenderest herbage, brooding them under her wings, and accompanying all their movements with their real parent.

nest.

The eggs are smaller than those of the common Goose, pure white, and of a very long oval; whether this is a specific, or only an individual peculiarity, I am unable to say. The shell is also thinner than most other Goose's eggs. The flesh, both of the wild and of the tame bird, excellent. In hard weather, they are frequently to be had at the poulterers' shops, and generally at low prices, in the provinces at least, owing to an unfounded supposition that their flesh would be fishy, as in the scarcely

eatable Brent Goose. But those who are fond of game, will find it, if hung up long enough, a dish for an epicure.

If my own birds are to be taken as specimens, the White-fronted Goose is a pattern of all that is valuable in anserine nature, gentle, affectionate, cheerful, hardy, useful, self-dependent. The Gander is an attentive parent, but not a faithful spouse. Indeed, it is time to contradict what has been published on this latter point, and to caution amateur breeders that Ganders have not the virtues of Scipio. Two treatises, now before me, have the following passage, differing slightly from each other in the wording.

"It has been ascertained, by M. St. Genis, that Geese will pair like Pigeons and Partridges; in the course of his experiments he remarked, that if the number of the Ganders exceed that of the Geese by two, and even by three, including the common father, no disturbance nor disputes occur, the pairing taking place without any noise, and no doubt by mutual choice. Besides the common father, he left. two of the young Ganders unprovided with female companions; but the couples which had paired, kept constantly together, and the three single Ganders did not, during temporary separations of the males and females, offer to approach the latter."

Acting on this advice, I permitted pairs of four different species of Geese to associate together last year (1846). Three Ganders of the four appeared to think that each Goose, except his own, was at liberty to be unfaithful; and that every Gander, except himself, was wrong in committing an infidelity. What with their jealousies before laying time, and their quarrels after it, with plenty of eggs, we did not get a single Gosling of any sort during the whole season.

THE WIGEON.

"Quod si quis à viro magno, ac gravi alienum esse putet de avibus, et rebus ad eas pertinentibus scribere, mihi graviter hallucinari, et totâ, quod aiunt, viâ errare videtur. Et illiberalis sordidusque eorum animus est, qui hisce spretis ad eas solum scientias incumbunt, quæ ad rem domesticam solummodo augendam faciunt, et ubique utilitatem, et lucrum spectant; illi profecto Æsopico gallinaceo similes censendi sunt, qui repertæ gemmæ hordei granum prætulit, quod usum gemmæ ignoraret. Cum itaque nullum sit animal, teste Aristotele, adeo exiguum, adeoque abjectum, in quo non aliquid rarum, reconditum, imo (ut ita dicam) divinitatis aliquid spectetur, itaque et avium, quæ animalia sunt perfecta, et admiratione plena, notitia non cum fastu rejicienda, at pro viribus cuique amplectanda est."-ULYSSIS ALDROVANDI Præfatio.

"If any one thinks that it is unsuitable for a great and grave man to write about birds and the things pertaining to them, he appears to me to blunder extremely, and, as they say, to have quite lost his road. Illiberal and sordid is the mind of those, who despise those pursuits, and labour at such sciences alone as are profitable to the household merely, and who look everywhere after utility and gain; truly they may be compared to Æsop's Cock, who preferred a grain of barley to the jewel he had found, because he was ignorant of the use of the jewel. Since, therefore, according to Aristotle, there is no animal so little, so abject, that we cannot see in it something rare, recondite, even (so to speak), something of the Divinity, so also the knowledge of birds, which are perfect animals, and worthy of admiration, is not to be rejected with contempt, but is to be embraced by every one according to his powers."

Ir must already have appeared that the object of these essays is not merely to give some account of such birds as are usually domesticated with us, but also to endeavour to indicate others which there is a reasonable hope of rendering subject to the rule of Man, and available to his use. But it is only after much patience and many trials that we can expect to enslave and attach to ourselves any creatures hitherto wild and unsubdued. Even then failures will occur; but I think there are principles that may guide us in choosing the most likely subjects for our experiments, which the following account