(BOOSE. J73 



the swan is seldom served up, except for the -purpose of 

 magnificence or ostentation. 



The ancients speak highly also of the vocal powers of 

 this bird, though experience shows us that it is the most 

 silent or dissonant in its note of all aquatic fowls. The nar- 

 ratives which have descended to us in this respect, can 

 only be accounted for by supposing that some mythologi* 

 cal meaning was concealed in them ; for it would be ridi- 

 culous to imagine that its voice can have undergone a 

 change by the lapse of time. 



. The swan is supposed to live about a hundred years, 

 and is considered as among the first ornaments of rivers or 

 artificial pieces of water. 



THE GOOSE. 



' The bill is the principal characteristic which distin* 

 guishes the goose kind from all the feathered tribes. In 

 -other birds, round and wedge-like, or crooked at the ex- 

 .tremity in the goose it is flat and broad, formed for the 

 .purpose of skimming from ponds and lakes the weeds 

 -which grow upon their surface. 



Though this tribe do not reject animal food, they wilr 

 Singly subsist on vegetable, and seldom seek any other. 

 The body is large ; notwithstanding which, the appetite 

 .is not very craving. Their fecundity is in proportion to 

 the facility with which their food is procured; and their 

 various good qualities have operated on man to take them 

 from a state of nature, and render them domestic. How 

 long they have been reclaimed from their original inde- 

 pendence is not easy to be ascertained. The time must 

 have been very remote, if we may judge from the many 

 changes produced in their colour, their figure, and even 

 their internal structure, by human cultivation. 



The different species of these fowls, in a wild state, are 

 simple in their colouring. When an exact description of 

 the plumage of one wild goose or wild duck is given, it 

 will to a feather correspond with that of any other ; but 

 in the tame kinds, no two of any species are seen alike. 

 i 3 



