422 THE CHINA GOOSE. 



bill, its thorny tongue, and its diet of grass. And therefore 

 we have determined to call it the China Goose, concluding 

 that Cuvier is right about its home,* and other authors about 

 its goosehood. 



There is something in the aspect of this creature, the dark- 

 brown stripe down its neck, its small bright eye, its harsh 

 voice, its ceremonious strut, and its affectation of seldom being 

 in a hurry, which seems to say that it came from China. It 

 would perfectly harmonize in a picture of Chinese still life ; or 

 in a Chinese garden, with artificially arranged rocks, dwarf 

 trees, crooked trellises, and zigzag pathways ; or, in a more 

 extended landscape, it would group well on a broad river, 

 beside a boat filled with shaven fishermen, with their trained 

 cormorants and pig-tailed children. If it does come from 

 China, it has no doubt been domesticated for many hundred 

 years, perhaps as long as the Peacock or common Fowl. They 

 may be made to lay a large number of Eggs by an increased 

 supply of nourishing food. This is very different from the 

 disposition to "lay everlastingly," as seen in the Guinea 

 Fowl, and some varieties of the domestic Hen the Black 

 Spanish for instance ; because the China Goose does in the 

 end feel a strong desire to incubate as soon as her protracted 

 laying is done, whereas entire exemption from the hatching 

 fever is the great merit of the " everlasting layers." If 

 liberally furnished with oats, boiled rice, &c., the China Goose 

 will in the spring lay from twenty to thirty Eggs before she 

 begins to sit, and again in the autumn, after her moult, from 

 ten to fifteen more. I have never observed any disposition to 

 sit after the autumnal laying. It is not, as in the Guinea 

 Fowl, a spontaneous flow of Eggs, for which the ordinary diet 



* In journeying overland, (in books of Travels,) we meet with the 

 Swan Goose more frequently as we approach Tartary and China. 



