THE WHITE CHINA GOOSE. 441 



and mixed into one. Believe it ! those who think that the 

 Bernicle G-oose originates from a worm engendered in the sea 

 from rotten wood not I. Perhaps these essays may cause 

 the real truth to be more closely investigated. 



If, within the last half-dozen years, three different sorts (I 

 abstain from using a stricter word) of China Geese, identical 

 with those with which we are acquainted, had been discovered 

 in three adjacent islands of the Indian Archipelago, they would 

 probably have been formed into a separate genus, say Cygnb- 

 ides, or better, QEderamphus, of which the species might be, 

 first, albus, or galeatissimus, as typical; the next rufpes, and 

 the third, perhaps, bseticus, retaining, though in a different 

 sense, one of its trivial names. We should have, as a generic 

 character, (( forehead surmounted with a large knob, partly 

 fleshy and partly osseous, increasing with age ; beak powerful, 

 highly ridged, adapted to the digging up and division of roots 

 and tubers, to which purpose it is often applied ; " they make 

 short work with a potato "habits, more terrestial than 

 aquatic ; attitudes, in the water graceful and swanlike, on 

 land, constrained and usually erect; voice, harsh and loud; 

 powers of flight very limited and weak/' and so on; then 

 would follow the specific distinctions. 



Now, we will further suppose that a stock of each of these 

 species was either brought to England, or retained in domesti- 

 cation on the neighbouring Asiatic continent, or both ; that the 

 islands became thickly peopled, or repeatedly visited by mari- 

 ners armed with fowling-pieces, and anxious for fresh meat, 

 and also for sport. The birds cannot escape by flight, nor by 

 running away; they can neither swim so swiftly, nor dive so 

 far as to baffle a boat and a crew of stout rowers ; they make 

 no attempt to conceal themselves, as a common Hen will if she 

 be hunted in a shrubbery; their loud cries betray them when 

 unseen; and, consequently, in their native home, they un- 

 dergo the fate of the Dodo : they are exterminated. But their 



