410 THE DOMESTIC GOOSE. 



fine the limits of species, at least if the fertility or infertility 

 of hybrids be the test. 



But the supposition that all our domesticated creatures must 

 necessarily have an existing wild original, is a mere assumption ; 

 and it has misled, and is likely to mislead, investigators as far 

 from the truth as did the old notion about fossil organic re- 

 mains, that they were Lithoschemata, as Aldrovandus has it, 

 sketches in stone, abortive efforts of Nature, imperfect em- 

 bryos, instead of fragmentary ruins of a former state of things. 

 Some naturalists seem already to have had misgivings that 

 such a theory respecting domestic animals is not tenable. Ac- 

 cording to the Rev. L. Jenyns, 



" The Domestic Goose is usually considered as having been 

 derived from the Gray-legged Goose, but such a circumstance 

 is rendered highly improbable from the well-known fact that 

 the Common Gander, after attaining a certain age, is inva- 

 riably (?) white. Montague, also, observes that a specimen of 

 the Anser fcrus, which was shot in the wing by a farmer in 

 Wiltshire, and kept alive many years, would never associate 

 with the tame Geese. In fact the origin of this last is un- 

 known." Jenyntfs Manual of Vertebrate Animals, p. 222, 



The origin of the Domestic Goose is indeed unknown, if we look 

 to Man, or his influence, to have originated so valuable and 

 peculiar a species ; but not unknown, if we believe it to have 

 been created by the same Almighty Power who animated 

 the Mammoth, the Plesiosaurus, the Dinornis, and the Dodo. 

 For let us grant that the Gray-legged Goose is the most pro- 

 bable existing parent of the domestic sort. Now, even that is 

 becoming a rare bird ; and the more scarce a creature is in a 

 wild state, the scarcer it is likely still to become. Suppose the 

 Gray-legged Goose extinct; by no means an impossibility. 

 Then those who must have a wild original from which to de- 

 rive all our domestic animals would be compelled to fall back 

 on some other species still less probable. It is surely a simpler 



