GREY LAG GOOSE 271 



In the British Isles the mute swan exists solely as a domesticated 

 bird, although the date of its introduction is unknown. The largest 

 swannery in the United Kingdom is the one at Abbotsbury, in 

 Dorchester, belonging to the Earl of Ilchester, where the birds live 

 chiefly on the Fleet estuary, but not unfrequently visit the open sea. 

 In the wild state the present species breeds in southern Scandinavia, 

 Germany, central and southern Russia, the lower Danubian princi- 



I'.EWICK's, 9- UEWICk's. I'OLISH, IM.M. MUTE, S- 



i^ifii 



WHOOPEK, IMM. WHOOPF.R, AD. 

 HEADS OF BKITISH SU'AXS. 



palities, on the Black and Caspian Seas, in Asia Minor, and thence 

 eastwards by way of Turkestan and Mongolia to Amurland. As 

 regards habits, it will suffice to say that the period of incubation 

 among domesticated birds lasts for thirty-nine days, that is to say, 

 nearly six weeks ; the first egg being not unfrequently laid soon after 

 the middle of March. It is believed that the females do not begin to 

 lay before their third year. 



Grey Lag- Goose '^^^^ S^'^y lag goose (the Afiser anser of some writers, 

 (Anser ferus). '^'^*-^ ^' ^^'^^^'^^^ of others) is the first and t}'pical repre- 

 sentative of the subfamily Anserine, which includes 

 not only the grey geese, but likewise the brent and bernicle geese. 

 All the members of the group are sharply distinguished from the swans 

 by their relatively shorter necks, which contain less than twenty joints, 

 or vertebras. They are further characterised by the fact that the lower 

 end of the windpipe, at any rate in the more typical members of the 

 group, is not expanded into a bladder-like chamber. In form, they are 

 heavily built birds, with their legs placed nearer the middle of the body 

 than in ducks ; and they are thus better adapted than the latter for 

 w^alking on land, where they spend much of their time, and obtain a 

 large proportion of their food. The latter in the case of many species 

 consists largely of grass or other green herbage ; but seaweed forms 



