474 Miscellaneous. 



Some years ago one was shot by Mr. Hammond of St. Alban's 

 Court, near Wingham, in Kent. The present specimen was shot by 

 a boy employed in keeping crows in a field at Dandelion, near Mar- 

 gate, on the 21st of last December, and sold for fourpence to a 

 dealer. 



LONGEVITY OF GEESE. 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gentlemen, — Most willingly do I concede to Mr. Hassall pri- 

 ority in his observations on the phosphorescence of zoophytes, &c.,* 

 and I regret that I was ignorant of them till I received a kind and 

 polite note from himself. I have little reason however to regret that 

 I sent my paper to you, as it has been the means of obtaining for 

 me the acquaintance of Mr. Hassall, whose experiments have been 

 made on a richer field and a more extensive scale, and who writes in 

 the con amore style of a true naturalist. 



Before I lay down my pen, may I use the liberty of asking you, 

 as I am not deeply read in Anserine annals, whether you can tell me 

 how many years a goose may live, if insured against all deadly at- 

 tacks at Christmas and New- i*ear's-day from gourmand and gastero- 

 nome ? You may perhaps archly reply, that you could give a good 

 guess, if you knew the age of some of your veteran correspondents. 

 I shall not tell you mine ; but I may state that I am not yet so old as 

 a goose whose premature death was recorded about seven years ago 

 in my manuscript memcrabilia. I was then told by the Rev. Mr. 

 Gibb, that when he was tutor in the family of Mr. Campbell, of 

 Auchlian, in Argyleshire, a new cook, by mistake, killed a goose 

 which had reached the patriarchal age of threescore and four years. 

 This was matter of great sorrow to the family, for the goose was 

 precisely the same age as the Laird ; and willingly would they have 

 cherished it all the days of its natural life. With these feelings of 

 regard, it would have been like cannibalism to feast on their old 

 feathered friend. Mr. Gibb and two of his pupils were at Glasgow 

 College when the catastrophe took place, and they sent the slaugh- 

 tered goose to them, that in their ignorance they might regale them- 

 selves without prejudice. The goose was welcomed and roasted, 

 and served up ; but sharpset as these young Highland chieftains 

 were, poor goosie set them at defiance, for its flesh was as tough as 

 leather. Yours, &c, D. Landsbouough. 



Manse of Stevenston, Ayrshire, 13th January 1842. 



M. PETIT ON THE QUESTIONABLE AUTHENTICITY OF NAMES GIVEN TO 

 UNDESCRIBED GENERA AND SPECIES. 



We have submitted to our readers in one of the late numbers of 

 the ' Revue Zoologique,' some observations tending to show the 

 error into which Dr. Grateloup had, in our opinion, been led, in 

 considering as definitely established specific names given by him, 

 without description, to some new shells which he did not actually 

 make known till subsequently, and after Mr. Sowerby. 



* We would refer our correspondents to Ehrenberg's treatise on the phos- 

 phorescence of the sea in the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy. — Ed. 



