THE DOMESTIC GOOSE. 411 



theory to suppose that creatures that were cotemporary with 

 the Mammoth, have, like it, disappeared from the earth in 

 their wild state, but have survived as dependents on Man, than 

 to engage in attempts at reconciling incongruities and dis- 

 crepancies, which, after all, cannot satisfy the mind, but leave 

 it in as doubtful a state as ever. 



Still less is the White-fronted the ancestor of the Domestic 

 Goose. Entirely white specimens of the Albifrons are indeed 

 occasionally hatched in confinement, and the Common Goose 

 may now and then exhibit traces of an admixture or dash of 

 blood with it, as it certainly does, occasionally, of a cross with 

 the China Goose (Oycno'ides) ; but these are mere impurities, 

 which wear out, and the race returns to the well-known do- 

 mestic type. And it will be allowed by most persons who 

 have possessed a variety of these birds, and who have watched 

 and tended them day by day, that the Domestic Goose is suffi- 

 ciently separated from the Gray-legged by the colour of its 

 feet and legs j from the White-fronted by the extreme dif- 

 ference of its voice, manner, time of incubation, colour of the 

 eyes, greater thickness of neck, convexity of profile, and many 

 other little particulars that are more easily perceived than 

 described. 



It might be urged, as a further essential difference, that the 

 Domestic Goose is polygamous, whereas all Wild Geese that 

 we are acquainted with are monogamous. It is true that Wild 

 Geese, in captivity, will couple with the females of other species ; 

 but that takes place by their utterly neglecting their own mate 

 for the time, not by entertaining two or more mistresses at 

 once. It will be replied, that habits of polygamy are the 

 effects of domestication ; but what proof have we of such an 

 assertion? Domestication has not yet induced the Pigeon 

 and the Guinea Fowl to consort with more than one partner; 

 and the Swan, called Domestic by some writers, remains obsti- 

 nately and even fiercely faithful in its attachments. 



