148 ANATIMl. 



own domesticated animals. How it happens that the 

 domestic goose derived from a wild grey species, should 

 become white, I am unable to answer ;* but some of those 

 persons who keep geese, state, that all ganders after a 

 certain age become white. This colour once obtained, 

 there is little or no difficulty in perpetuating it by restric- 

 tion, and there is a motive for perseverance, as white fea- 

 thers produce a better price than grey ones. Domestic 

 Geese are said to be very long lived ; one is recorded to 

 have lived sixty-four years, and was then killed by mistake. 

 There is, however, some reason to believe that one 

 other species, at least, has had some share in establishing 

 our present domestic race. Almost all the species of Geese, 

 Swans, Ducks, and Mergansers, are remarkable for the 

 peculiar form of their organ of voice, or windpipe ; and so 

 peculiar as well as permanent is this anatomical character, 

 that the males of the British species of this family, con- 

 sisting of about forty, almost all of them, but more parti- 

 cularly the Swans, Ducks, and Mergansers, can be imme- 

 diately identified by the examination of this organ alone. 

 Figures of these will be hereafter introduced as vignettes 

 to the species to which they belong. In the Wild Grey- 

 lag Goose the tube of the windpipe is nearly cylindrical, 

 and this form of trachea I have frequently found on ex- 

 amination of domestic Geese intended for the table, but I 

 have also frequently found the tube flattened at the lower 

 portion, a character which is constant in the Anser albifrons , 

 or White-fronted Goose ; and there are few persons well 

 acquainted with the appearance of our domestic Geese 

 who have not observed in many of them the white ring 

 of feathers round the base of the beak extending a little 

 upwards on the forehead, from which the Anser albifrons 



* There are two white varieties of domestic Ducks derived from the Wild 

 Duck, namely, the English Aylesbury Duck and the Dutch Call Duck. 



