THE "GREY" GEESE 161 



THE GEESE 

 [W. P. PYCRAFT] 



That the Geese stand nearer to the ancestral stock of the 

 Anseriformes than either the Ducks or the Swans there can be no 

 reasonable doubt. And there is therefore no occasion for surprise 

 to find that they are less specialised than either, though possessing 

 the common characteristics of both. Only among the geese do we 

 find longitudinally striped young : they display no seasonal and rarely 

 any sexual peculiarities of plumage, and they lack the eccentricities 

 of development in the matter of the trachea which is so charac- 

 teristic of the ducks and swans, though in this particular the aberrant 

 Anseranas must be excluded. In the bristly armature of the fleshy 

 tongue they more nearly resemble the swans than the ducks, and in 

 the denticulation of the beak they differ from both, as also in the 

 peculiar shape of the beak, and the singular longitudinal grooves 

 which divide the feathers of the neck. 



Gregarious at all times, on the wing these birds fly in A" or 

 sometimes in M formation, and such companies are known among 

 sportsmen either as a " skein " or a " gaggle " of geese ; but the origin 

 of the terms "gander" for the male and "goose" for the female 

 dates from Anglo-Saxon times. 



THE "GREY' GEESE 



The four species which are commonly associated under the term 

 "grey geese" are undoubtedly closely related, and this is shown not 

 only by their coloration, but also in their habits. Only one, the 

 "greylag," breeds so far south as Great Britain, the rest the white- 

 fronted, bean, and pinkfooted-geese with their congeners to be 



VOL. IV. X 



