Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

pedigree than all the Howards multiplied a thousand fold -and I feel convinced many equally ancient birds also); and we have, besides, records of modern exterminations successively going on, from the Christian æra to the present day. No undisputed record, however, is to be found of the sudden emergence into life of a new tribe of creatures. Foreign introductions there have been, but nothing more, that there is any affirmative evidence to prove. I am conscious that I may be contradicted by such examples as the New Leicester Sheep, and the very remarkable Rabbits that are now kept in a state of domestication; but Mr. Bakewell is asserted to have studiously concealed and destroyed every trace of the means by which he established his breed, and the secrets of the Rabbit Fancy are as likely to be made available to the elucidation of Natural History, as are the Eleusinian Mysteries. But so long as our commercial relations continue as widely extended as they are at present, the sudden and unexplained appearance of any living novelty in England, is by no means of necessity its first appearance on any stage. It may be as old as the hills-some of them, older than the English Channel-and have neither made a sudden drop from the clouds in these latter days, nor have been recently compounded, like Frankenstein's monster, from the members of defunct creatures, nor yet electrified into life in a pickle jar, like Mr. Cross's mites. Milton's noble lines are no longer applicable

"Meanwhile, the tepid caves, and fens, and shores,
Bursting with kindly rupture, forth disclosed

Their callow young; but feathered soon and fledge,
They summed their pens; and, soaring the air sublime,

prove authentic, the Meles taxus is the oldest known species of Mammal now living on the face of the earth.

"My friend, Mr. Bell, has pleaded the cause of the poor persecuted Badger, on the ground of its harmless nature and innocuous habits; the genuine sportsman will, doubtless, receive favourably the additional claim to his forbearance and protection, which the Badger derives from his ancient descent."-OWEN's British Fossil Mammals, passim.

With clang despised the ground. ** And straight the earth,
Opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth

Numerous living creatures, perfect forms

Limbed and full-grown; out of the ground up rose,

As from his lair, the wild beast where he wons

In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den.”

If such views be correct, it will follow that those who are searching for the wild originals of many of our domestic animals, are altogether pursuing a wrong scent. They might just as well search for the wild original of the Mammoth or the Dodo. It is an assumption, unsupported by any proof, to fix upon the wild creature that nearest resembles any given tame one, and to say, "Here is the wild original; the differences which we see have been produced by time and domestication:" or, if there is nothing wild coming within a moderate approach to it, to say, as of the Common Goose, "It is a combination of three or four other species."? This is surely not philosophical reasoning; it is a begging of the question which would not be admitted in the exact sciences. What a daring leap at a conclusion it is, to get from the Asiatic Argali, the American Argali, or the Corsican Mouflon, any or all of them, to the Sheep at a single vault! Such ratiocination is like the knight's move on the chess-board, hither and thither, but never straight forward. Nor has the wide gulf between Cocks and Hens and the Jungle Fowl been as yet bridged over by any isthmus to me visible. But what may be said on this latter subject is, for the present, reserved. The principle here sought to be indicated as a guide for future research, is that existing varieties and species which cannot be exactly identified in a wild state, are, in all probability, the remains of extinct races, the fragments of a ruin, not newly-raised "seedlings," modern sports and freaks of Nature. Man, as he extends his dominion over earth and ocean, is generally a Destroyer, occasionally an Enslaver, and so far a Protector, hence sometimes even a Selecter and Improver, but never a Creator.

I

And now to the white China Geese, about whose lineage the reader, we hope, is by this time interested.

The

My attention was first directed to these singular birds by Mr. Alfred Whitaker of Beckington, Somerset. "I wish you could have seen the white variety or species, as it is so far superior in every respect to the brown. period of incubation of the white China Goose was not more than thirty days, i.e. not longer than that of the common Duck. The white China Goose is of a spotless pure white " —a very few grey feathers have since appeared

"more Swan-like than the brown variety, with a bright orange-coloured bill, and a large orange-coloured knob at its base. It is a particularly beautiful bird, either in or out of the water, its neck being long, slender, and gracefully arched when swimming. It breeds three or four times in the season, but I was not successful with them, owing, as I fancied, to my having no water for them, except a rapid running stream. A quiet lake I believe to be more to their taste, and more conducive to the fecundity of the eggs. I believe my birds are still in the neighbourhood, as I lent them to a farmer to try his luck with them. The egg is quite small for the size of the bird, being not more than half the size of that of the common Goose. This bird deserves to rank in the first class of ornamental poultry, and would be very prolific under favourable circumstances. You will see both varieties of brown and white China Geese on the water in St. James's Park. My Geese were from imported parents, and were hatched on board ship from China."

On visiting town in May, 1848, my efforts to get a sight of any white China Geese were unavailing. There were none now left in St. James's Park; there were not any in the Surrey Gardens, choice as that collection is; nor were any visible at the principal places where poultry is offered for sale. The Zoological Society had parted from their specimens in consequence of being overstocked with other things. Their head keeper seemed only to consider them in the light of a variety of the Cygnoides, but

he spoke most decidedly of his experience of the permanence, not only of this variety, but also of that of the dark-legged, and the red-legged sorts of the brown kind, thus indicating three races, which, I repeat, would be considered as species were they now discovered for the first time, on three islands even of the same group.

From this difficulty I was most kindly relieved by receiving a pair of white China Geese through Mr. Whitaker's means. They are larger than the brown China Geese, apparently more terrestrial in their habits; the knob on the head is not only of greater proportions, but of a different shape. If they were only what is commonly meant by a variety of the dark sort, it is a question whether the bill would not retain its original jetty black, whatever change occurred to the feet and legs, instead of assuming a brilliant orange hue. If the bird were an Albino, the bill would be flesh-coloured, and the eyes would be pink, not blue.

Mr. Knight, of Frome, in whose possession they had been for three years, states that he has been unable to obtain any young from the eggs of the Goose, but if he supplies her with eggs of the comnion Goose, she invariably hatches and rears the goslings. Separate trials of each of the pair with the common Goose and Gander have been made by him unsuccessfully, although the white China Goose lays four times in the year. Another gentleman (N. B.) who also had a pair of the same lot, from China, says, "I had one good brood from the young pair which I kept, but since that they have bred so badly that I have parted with the females and kept a male bird, and now get very good broods. My friends, to whom I have given young birds from my pair, also complain. The Geese sit remarkably well, never showing themselves out of the nest by day, but whether they may leave the nests too long in the cold of the night, I cannot tell. The time of incubation I consider to be about four weeks and three days. The young birds of the crossed breed in appearance follow the mother, the common

English Goose, but they do remarkably well; and we have now (July 4) killed two really good and sufficiently fat birds, which were hatched only on the 29th of March last."

I find no mention of the White China Goose in any of the older ornithologists to whom I have had access. Willughby gives separate descriptions of the dark kinds, but elsewhere seems doubtful whether he has not described the same thing under different names. Indeed, in his plates he has confounded the Guinea Goose with the Canada Goose. Some writers speak of a variety with a pouch, or, according to others, lappets under the chin. This I have never seen or heard of in any collection. One cause of the difficulty of recognising the China Goose from descriptions and synonyms seems to have arisen from the general similarity, yet fixed though slight distinctive marks, of the two dark varieties. It is possible that the pouched or lappetted sort may have been for some time lost to this country, and may now be recoverable only in China and its islands.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »