579 



ANSERINE. 



GEESE AND ALLIED SPECIES. 



The birds popularly known by the names of Geese, 

 Swans, and Ducks, although so intimately connected by the 

 complex modification of their organs, as to render it impos- 

 sible to institute well denned sections among them, are too 

 numerous to be considered as forming a single family, their 

 analogical relations to other groups rendering it necessary to 

 subdivide them into families and genera. In instituting these 

 sections it seems to me that we must be guided more by the 

 general form than by the modifications of particular organs. 

 Were we, for example, to place together all the species which 

 have the bill short, and in some degree tapering or conical, 

 then those in which it is longer and of nearly equal breadth 

 throughout, and those distinguished by an elongated bill, 

 enlarged toward the end, we should find our groups composed 

 of birds in other respects very unlike each other. A similar 

 result would ensue from our associating the species furnished 

 with long legs, placing those with moderate legs in another 

 group, and those with short legs in a third. But if, on the 

 other hand, we take all the large-bodied, long-necked, mode- 

 rate-legged, and strong-billed species, and place them together, 

 we constitute a group of which all the members have a great 

 mutual resemblance, although many of them may differ in 

 some respects, one having the feet larger, another the bill 

 broader, and the third the neck longer than the standard or 

 typical species. According to this latter method then, we 

 may associate all the very large, full-bodied species, known by 

 the names of Geese and Bernicles, forming them into a family, 

 to which the name of Anserinse may be given, and of which 

 the general characters seem to be the following : — 



The body is ovate, or elliptical, very large and full, of 



