142 AQUATIC FOWL. 



the middle of April until the middle of May. Their food is tender, 

 aquatic herbage, and a marine plant, called sea-cabbage, together 

 with grain and berries. They swim well, and if winged, dive and 

 go a good way under water. Their flight is heavy and laborious, 

 generally in a straight line, or in two lines approximating to a 

 point, thus, > : in both cases, the van is led by an old gander, 

 who, every now and then, pipes his well-known honk, as if to ask 

 how they come on, and the honk of "all's well" is generally re- 

 turned by some of the party. Their course is in a straight line, 

 with the exception of the undulations of their flight. When 

 bewildered, in foggy weather, they appear sometimes to be in 

 great distress, flying about in an irregular manner, and for a 

 considerable time, over the same quarter, making a great clamour, 

 during which the inhabitants deal death and destruction amongst 

 them. The wounded birds are easily domesticated, and readily 

 pair with the tame gray goose, and their offspring are found to be 

 larger than either, but the markings of the wild goose predominate. 

 On the approach of spring the domesticated birds, from the wild 

 stock, discover symptoms of great uneasiness, frequently looking 

 up into the air, and attempting to go off. The gunners take one 

 or two of these domesticated geese with them, to those parts of 

 the marches, over which the wild ones are accustomed to fly ; and 

 concealing themselves within gunshot, wait for a flight, which is 

 no sooner perceived by the decoy geese, than they begin calling 

 aloud, until the whole flock approaches so near, as to give the 

 gunner an opportunity of discharging two, or sometimes three 

 loaded muskets among it, by which great havoc is made. They 

 weigh from ten to fourteen pounds, and are sold in the Philadel- 

 phia market, at from seventy-five cents to one dollar, and are 

 estimated to yield half a pound of feathers each, which produces 

 twenty-five or thirty cents more. Buflfon says many hundreds of 

 these birds inhabit the great canal at Versailles, where they breed 

 familiarly, and also decorate the charming gardens of Chantilly. 

 Our London Zoological Spciety, Regent's Park, is in possession of 

 some fine specimens, as well as the Ornithological Society of St. 

 James's Park, in both of which places they have bred. The Earl 

 of Derby has bred them, at Knowsley, and has produced an hybrid 

 variety, between them and the barnacle goose, some fine specimens 

 of which he has presented to the Royal Zoological Society, Phoenix 

 Park, Dublin. They have been bred in a domestic state on 

 several lakes in Ireland, and have been frequently shot in a wild 

 state. As all animals degenerate from close breeding, and as 

 there is a difficulty in procuring the gray-lag, it might be judi- 



