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once will never be at a loss to recognise it, 

 when viewed amongst all other species of 

 the Goose tribe. There can be nothing more 

 enlivening to rural solitude than the trumpet- 

 sounding notes of the Canada Goose. They 

 may be heard here at most hours of the day, 

 and often during the night. But spring is 

 the time at which these birds are most vo- 

 ciferous. Then it is that they are on the 

 wing, moving in aerial circles round the 

 mansion, now rising aloft, now dropping 

 into the water, with such notes of apparent 

 joy and revelry, as cannot fail to attract the 

 attention of those who feel an interest in 

 contemplating Nature's wildest scenery." 

 Mr. W. afterwards relates the following in- 

 teresting story : " On my return from Italy 

 in the autumn of 1841, the keeper informed 

 me that, in the preceding spring, one of the 

 little Bernacle ganders, accompanied by an 

 old Canadian Goose, had come on the island 

 where the mansion stands, and formed a 

 kind of nest on the border of a flower-bed 

 near the boat-house ; that the female had 

 laid five eggs in it, and that all these eggs 

 had turned out addle. I could easily com- 

 prehend the latter part of his information 

 relative to the eggs : but had he told me 

 that the income-tax is a blessing, and that 

 the national debt is an honour to the country, 

 I could more readily have believed him, 

 than that a Canada Goose had been fool 

 enough to unite herself with a Bernacle 

 gander. Nevertheless the man persisted 

 stoutly in what he had affirmed, and I told 

 the story to others, and nobody believed me. 

 In the breeding season, however, of 1842, 

 this diminutive Gander and magnificent 

 Goose appeared on the island ; and as the 

 spot which they had occupied on the pre- 

 ceding year was very bleak and quite un - 

 sheltered, I thought that I could offer them 

 a more commodious situation. Just opposite 

 the eastern windows of the sitting-room, and 

 two-and-twenty yards distant from them, 

 there is yet alive the remant of a once superb 

 and fertile black-heart cherry-tree. It was 

 evidently past its prime in tlie days of my 

 early youth ; but I can well remember that 

 it then bore ponderous loads of dainty 

 cherries. This cherry-tree, like the hand 

 that is now writing a description of it, ap- 

 pears the worse for wear ; and the wintry 

 blasts of more than half a century have too 

 clearly proved that neither its internal 

 vigour, nor the strength of its gigantic limbs, 

 could make an effectual stand against the 

 attacks of such sturdy antagonists. Ita 

 north- western and north-eastern parts have 

 gradually died away, and what remains alive 

 of it to the southward can no longer produce 

 fruit to be compared with that of gone-by 

 periods. The bole, too, which measures full 

 ten feet and five inches in circumference at 

 the graft, seems to show signs of Time's 

 hard usage. Perhaps in a few years more a 

 south-western gale, which often does much 

 damage here, may lay it low in ruins. Close 

 to this venerable tree I made a hollow in the 

 ground, about the size of an ordinary coal- 

 basket, and filled it with hay. The Geese 

 soon took possession of it ; and on the third 

 day after they had occupied it, the female 



laid an egg in it. She ultimately sat on five, 

 and they all proved addle. 



" Last year this incongruous though per- 

 severing couple visited the island again, and 

 proceeded with the work of incubation in 

 the same place, and upon hay which had 

 been purposely renewed. Nothing could 

 exceed the assiduity with which the little 

 Bernacle stood guard, often on one leg, over 

 his bulky partner, day after day, as she 

 was performing her tedious task. If any 

 body approached the place, his cackling 

 was incessant : he would run at him with 

 the fury of a turkey cock ; he would jump 

 up at his knees, and not desist in his ag- 

 gressions until the intruder had retired. 

 There was something so remarkably dispro- 

 portionate betwixt this goose and gander, 

 that I gave to this the name of Mopsus, and 

 to that the name of Nisa ; and I would 

 sometimes ask the splendid Canadian Nisa, 

 as she sat on her eggs, how she could pos- 

 sibly have lost her heart to so diminutive a 

 little fellow as Bernacle Mopsus, when she 

 had so many of her own comely species pre- 

 sent, from which to choose a happy and effi- 

 cient partner. The whole affair appeared to 

 be one of ridicule and bad taste ; and I was 

 quite prepared for a termination of it, similar 

 to that of the two preceding years, when 

 behold 1 to mg utter astonishment, out came 

 two young ones, the remainder of the five 

 eggs being addle. The vociferous gesticu- 

 lations and strutting of little Mopsus were 

 beyond endurance, when he first got sight 

 of his long-looked-for progeny. He screamed 

 aloud, whilst Nisa helped him to attack me, 

 with their united wings and hissings as I 

 approached the nest in order to convey the 

 little ones to the water ; for the place at 

 which the old birds were wont to get upon 

 the island lay at some distance, and I pre- 

 ferred to launch them close to the cherry- 

 tree ; which done, the parents immediately 

 jumped down into the water below, and 

 then swam off with them to the opposite 

 shore. This loving couple, apparently so ill- 

 assorted and disproportionate, has brought 

 up the progeny with great care and success. 

 It has now arrived at its full growth, and 

 is in mature plumage. These hybrids are 

 elegantly shaped, but are not so large as the 

 mother, nor so small as the father, their 

 plumage partaking in colour with that of 

 both parents. The white on their front is 

 only half as much as that which is seen on 

 the front of the gander, whilst their necks 

 are brown" in lieu of the coal-black colour 

 which appears on the neck of the goose. 

 Their breasts, too, are of a dusky colour, 

 whilst the breast of the Bernacle is black, 

 and that of the Canadian white ; and 

 throughout the whole of the remaining 

 plumage, there may be seen an altered and 

 modified colouring not to be traced in that 

 of the parent birds. 



" I am writing this in the middle of Feb- 

 ruary. In a fortnight or three weeks more, 

 as the breeding season approaches, perhaps 

 my little Mopsus and his beauteous Nisa 

 may try their luck once more, at the bole of 

 the superannuated cherry-tree. I shall have 

 all in readiness, and shall be glad to see 



