420 



CHAPTER XXVHI. 



THE CHINA GOOSE. 



Or this mnf ty, three beautiful specimens were exhibited at 

 the late Agricultural Show, held in the county of Philadelphia. 

 They were owned by a gentleman, whose name I forget, living 

 in the vicinity of Tacony, near this city. In introducing this 

 variety to the reader, Mr. Dixon says : 



There is a venerable joke about a Spanish Don, who knocked 

 at a cottage door to ask a night's lodging. " Who's there ? 

 What do you want ?" said the inmates. " Don Juan Jose 

 Pedro Antonio Alonzo Carlos Geronimo, &c., &c., &c., wants to 

 sleep here to-night." "Get along with you/' was the reply: 

 " how should we find room here for so many fellows ?" The 

 China Goose is in the same position as the Spanish Don. It 

 has names enough to fill a menagerie. China Goose, Knob 

 Goose, Hong-Kong-Goose, Asiatic Goose, Swan Goose, Chinese 

 Swan, (Cygnus Sinensis, CUVIER,) Guinea Goose, Spanish 

 Goose, Polish Goose, Anas and Anser cygnoides, Muscovy 

 Goose, and probably more besides. 



Confusion, therefore, and perplexity, are the certain lot 

 of whosoever attempts to trace this bird in our books of na- 

 tural history. Its place of birth has excluded it from all mo- 

 nographs or limited ornithologies. In very few systematic 

 works is it mentioned at all, which is remarkable of a bird so 

 strikjrg in its appearance, which there is every reason to be- 



