128 W A T E R B I R D S. 



coloured when they firft leave the fhell, and forfome months after. Iti* 

 not a little dangerous to approach the old ones, when their little family are 

 feeding round them. After a twelve-month, which it takes to come 

 to maturity, the young fwans change their colour with their plumage. 

 Some fay it lives three hundred years ; Willoughby feems to believe it. A 

 goofe, as he juftly obferves, has been known to live an hundred ; and the 

 fwan, from irs fuperior fize, and from its harder, firmer fleih, may na- 

 turally be fuppofcd to live ftill longer. We fee multitudes on the Thames 

 and Trent; but no where greater numbers than on the fait watcr-inict 

 pf the fea near Abbotfbury, in Dorfetlhire. 



Of the goose and its varieties. 



^I^HE Goofe, in its domeftic (late, exhibits a variety of colours. 



I The wild goofe always retains the fame marks: the whole upper 

 part is afh-coloured; the bread and belly dirty white j the bill narrow at 

 the bafe, at the tip black; the legs of a faffron colour; the claws black. 

 Thefe marks are feldom found in the tame, whofe bill is entirely red, and 

 "whofe legs are entirely brown. The wild goofe is rather iefs than 

 the tame; but both invariably retain a white ring round their tail, which 

 .^hews that they are both defcended from the fame original. 



The wild goofe is fuppofed to breed in the northern parts of Europe; 

 and, in the beginning of winter, to defcend into more temperate regions. 

 They fly at very great heights, in flocks from fifty to an hundred, feldom 

 reding by day. Their cry is frequently heard when they are impercepti- 

 ble above us ; and this feems repeated among them, as among hounds in 

 purfuit ; but this they feldom exert, when they alight. On coming 

 to the ground by day, they range themfelves in a line, like cranes. 

 When they have thus fat an hour or two, one of them, with a loud long 

 note, founds a kind of charge, to which the red attend, and they purfue 

 i;heir journey with renewed alacrity. Their flight is very regular: they 

 either go in a line a-bread, or in two lines, joining in an angle in the 

 middle. It is thought their flight is thus arranged to cut the air with 

 greater eafe. 



The Barnacle differs from both thefe $ being Iefs than either, with a 

 black bill, much diorter than the preceding. 



The 



