142 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



paratively short and strong ; the lamellae hardly deserve tliat name, being short, broad at 

 base, tooth-Iikc, and altogether adapted to the grazing habits of these birds. The body 

 is stout, and the logs jilaced near the equilibrium, sons to make the movements on land 

 less awkward than in most ducks. The jilumagc of the neck is rather jicculiar, the 

 feathers being narrow and arranged in oblique series into more or less cons])icuou9 ridges 

 and grooves. The two cuts represent two of the most important genera, the gray-lag 

 being the type of Anser proper, the land-geese, while the common brant (liranta her- 

 nicla) shows the chief characters of the sea-geese, which feed particularly on the sea- 

 grass. The gray-lag goose (which, by the way, is the wild stock of the domesticated 

 goose) and its allies are restricted to the boreal regions, while the bernicle geese are 

 equally well represented in the soutlu'ni hemisphere, particularly in antarctic South 



Fig. 68. — Branta bermcla, comiiiou brant. 



America, where several handsome species, peculiar by the metallic reflections of the 

 wing speculum, have tlieir home. 



One of these, CIthepliaga melanoptera, inhabits the high Andes of Peru and Boli- 

 via, as high up as 14,000 feet above the sea-level, and lias not been met with south of 35° 

 south latitude. It descends in winter to the plains, but retires in sunmier to the high 

 Cordillera, to the verge of the line of ])erpetual snow. Another beautiful species is 

 the emperor-goose {Flnlacte canagica), from islands in Bering's Sea and Alaska. Be- 

 sides these tlicre arc numerous other kinds, of which we can only mention the names, 

 the red-breasted brant {liitfibreiita ruficollis), from eastern Siberia, the barred-headed 

 goose {Eiddbeiu iixlicci), from India, the swan-goose ( Ci/f/nopnis ci/r/nouks), from 

 China, the Ilawkcsbury bernicle ( Chlamydochen jubata), from Australia, etc. We 

 will have to stop a moment, however, to consider a genus, containing only a few 

 diminutive species of geese, the so-called goslets {Nettepics), of which representatives 



