Appendix 197 



fore, the Bass Goose of the Scots, which has its nest 

 and eggs on the Bass, a Scottish Isle, and thence takes its 

 name. Now when at a certain season of the year the 

 Geese are about to return to this precipitous island rock — 

 not so big on the top as a Kite could hover over (as the 

 Poet has said), but very small — it would be too long to 

 recount what spying, what circumspection (scouts having been 

 sent ahead) they use before they alight : at what time of year 

 they do this, the solitary state of the isle, when the inhabit- 

 ants shut themselves up for several days, until the Geese 

 have settled down, lest they should drive them off, in what 

 numbers and in what a throng they fly to it, so that in clear 

 weather they obscure the sun, how many fishes they bring 

 home, how many eggs they lay, and what profit the dwellers 

 in the isle make annually from the feathers and the oil of these 

 Geese (for they possess the fatness and the taste of Pupins). 



Of the Indian Duck. 



There is among us, a Duck from India, with exactly the 

 same form of body, the same beak and foot as the common 

 bird, but bigger by half and heavier. Its head is red as 

 blood, as is a good part of the adjoining neck behind. The 

 whole of this is callous flesh and marked with fissures : and 

 where it ends at the nostrils it makes a caruncle like that in 

 Swans, separated in form from the rest of the flesh, which 

 joins the beak. The head and red part of the neck are 

 devoid of feathers, save that on the top of the head is a white 

 feathery crest, extending over the whole length of the head ; 

 and this the bird erects, when it is excited. Under the eyes 

 to the beginning of the beak at its lower part irregular black 

 spots are arranged on the flesh : and one or two reach upward 

 from the top of the eye to the parts above. The eye is 

 yellowish, being separated by a black ring from the rest of 

 the head. Close behind the eye is a solitary mark, apart 

 from the rest. The whole beak is blue save that at the tip 

 one spot shews black. The plumage over all the rest of the 

 neck is white. Where the neck joins the body, there is a 

 ring of black feathers spotted and irregular — with an occa- 

 sional white one — narrower below, broader above. Behind 

 this the plumage is white over the whole of the belly below: 



