240 STERILITY FROM Chap. XVIIL 



yet almost all the kinds have frequently produced young in the 

 various European menageries, even the mooruk {Casuarius bennetii) 

 from New Ireland. The African ostrich, though perfectly healthy 

 and living long in the South of France, never lays more than from 

 twelve to fifteen eggs, though in its native country it lays from 

 twenty-five to thirty.-^* Here we have another instance of fertility 

 impaii-ed, but not lost, under confinement, as with the flying 

 squirrel, the hen-pheasant, and two species of American pigeons. 



Most Waders can be tamed, as the Kev. E. S. Dixon informs me, 

 with remarkable facility ; but several of them are short-lived under 

 confinement, so that their sterility in this state is not surprising. 

 The cranes breed more readily than other genera : Orvs montigresia 

 has bred several times in Paris and in the Zoological Gardens, as 

 has G. cinerea at the latter place, and G. antigone at Calcutta. Of 

 other members of this great order, Tttrapteryx paradisca has bred 

 at Knowsley, a Porphyrio in Sicily, and the Gallimda chloropus in 

 the Zoological Gardens. On the other hand, several birds belonging 

 to this order will not breed in their native coimtry, Jamaica ; and 

 the Psophia, though often kept by the Indians of Guiana about 

 their houses, " is seldom or never known to breed." ^^ 



The members of the great Duck family breed as readily in 

 confinement as do the Columbse and Gallinse ; and this, considering 

 their aquatic and wandering habits, and the nature of their food, 

 could not have been anticipated. Even some time ago above two 

 dozen species had bred in the Zoological Gardens ; and M. Selys- 

 Longchampshas recorded the production of hybrids from forty-four 

 different members of the family ; and to these Professor Newton has 

 added a few more cases.^^ " There is not," says Mr. Dixon,^^ " in 

 the wide world, a goose which is not in the strict sense of the word 

 domesticable ;" that is, capable of breeding under confinement ; 

 but this statement is probably too bold. The capacity to breed 

 sometimes varies in individuals of the same species; thus Audubon^^ 

 kept for more than eight years some wild geese {Anser canadensis'), 

 but they would not mate; whilst other individuals of the same 

 species produced young during the second year. I know of but one 

 instance in the whole family of a species which absolutely refuses 

 to breed in captivity, namely, the Dendrocygna viduata, although, 

 according to Sir E. Schomburgk,^^ it is easily tamed, and is 

 frequently kept by the Indians of Guiana. Lastly, with respect 



*■* Marcel de Sevres, ' Annales des ' Report Asiatic Soc. of Bengal,' May 



Sci. Nat.,' 2nd series, Zoolog., torn. 1855. 



xiii. p. 175. ^^ Prof. Newton, in * Proc. Zoolog. 



" Dr. Hancock, in ' Charlesworth's Soc.,' 1860, p. 336. 



Mag. of Nat. Hist.,' vol. ii., 1838, p. ^^ 'The Dovecote and Aviary,' p, 



49 1 ; R. Hill, ' A Week at Port Royal,' 428. 



p. 8 ; ' Guide to the Zoological Gardens,' ^® ' Ornithological Biography,' vol. 



by P. L. Sclater, 1859, pp. 11, 12; iii. p. 9. 



* The Knowsley Menagerie,* bv Dr. *^ ' Geograph. Journal,' vol. xiii., 



Gray, 1846, pi. xiv. ; E. lilyth, 1844 '). 32 



