OF THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 301 



ORDER ANSERIFORMES. 



THE SCREAMERS, FLAMINGOES, SWANS, GEESE, 

 DUCKS, AND MERGANSERS. 



THE birds comprising the present order constitute a fairly well-defined group, 

 possibly most nearly related to the Storks by way of the Flamingoes, and 

 to the Kails by way of the Screamers. They are perhaps also more remotely 

 allied to the Eaptores and the Pelicans. They form the order to which the name 

 of CHENOMORPELE was applied by Huxley ; and Count Salvadori, the most 

 recent monographer of the group, recognises what are certainly three very 

 natural suborders, viz., the PALAMEDE/E, or Screamers ; the PH^BNICOPTERI, or 

 Flamingoes ; and the ANSERES, or Ducks and allied forms. The birds in these 

 three groups have the palate desmognathous, and the spinal feather tract not 

 defined upon the neck : the young are also hatched covered with down, and able 

 to forage for themselves soon after breaking the shell. Other characters common 

 to the order (as shown by Count Salvadori) are the long neck, the tufted oil 

 gland, the incomplete internasal septum (nares pervioe), the coalescing of the 

 maxillo-palatines across the middle line, the presence of the ambiens muscle and 

 the leading of the flexor perforans digitorum to all three anterior digits but not 

 to the hallux. With the Flamingoes and the Screamers we are not concerned in 

 the present work. So far as the Ducks and their allies are concerned the regular 

 moult is a single one in autumn. In the Ducks the males moult their small 

 feathers twice during twelve months ; the Geese, Swans, and possibly all the 

 Sheldrakes have one moult only. The quills are moulted so rapidly as to 

 incapacitate the bird for flight. The progress of the young to maturity seems to 

 be as follows : In the Geese the young do not differ very remarkably from their 

 parents in colour, except in those species where the adults are characterised by 

 violent contrasts of colour ; in the Ducks the young in first plumage very closely 

 resemble the old female, and acquire (males) nearly adult plumage after their first 



