THE WHITE, CHINA GOOSE. 231 



our domestic animals, are altogether pursuing a wrong 

 scent. They might just as well search for the wild 

 original of the Mammoth or the Dodo. It is an as- 

 sumption, unsupported by any proof, to fix upon the 

 wild creature that nearest resembles any given tame 

 one, and say, " Here is the wild original ; the dif- 

 ferences which we see, have been produced by time 

 and domestication ;" or, if there is nothing wild com- 

 ing within a moderate approach to it, to say, as of 

 the common goose, "it is a combination of three or 

 four other species." This is surely not philosophical v 

 reasoning ; it is a begging of the question which would 

 not be admitted in the exact sciences. What a daring 

 leap at a conclusion it is, to get from the Asiatic ar- 

 gali, the American argali, or the Corsican mouflon, 

 any or all of them, to the sheep, at a single vault ! 

 Such ratiocination is like the knight's move on the 

 chess board, hither and thither, but never straight 

 forward. Nor has the wide gulf between cocks and 

 hens and the jungle fowls been as yet bridged over by 

 any isthmus to me visible. The principle here sought 

 to be indicated as a guide for future research is, that 

 existing varieties and species which cannot be exactly 

 identified in a wild state, are, in all probability, the 

 remains of extinct races, the fragments of a ruin, and 

 not newly-raised " seedlings," the modern sports and 

 freaks of Nature. 



And now to the white, China goose, about whose 

 lineage, the reader, it is hoped, by this time, is inter- 

 ested. It was brought into notice, a few years since, 

 by Mr. Alfred Whitaker, of Beckington, in Somerset, 

 England, who speaks of it in the following words : 

 " The white, China goose is of a spotless, pure white 

 more swan-like than the brown variety, with a bright 

 orange-colored bill, and a large orange-colored knob at 

 its base. It is a particularly beautiful bird, either in 

 or out of the water, its neck being long, slender, and 

 gracefully arched when swimming. It breeds three 

 or four times in a season, but I was not successfnl 



