130 THE POULTRY-BOOK. 



name ; and besides, all compounded epithets ought to be ban- 

 ished from natural history. The Guinea goose exceeds all 

 other geese in stature ; its plumage is a brown-gray on the 

 back, and light-gray on the fore side of the body, the whole 

 equally clouded with rusty-gray, and with a brown cast on the 

 head and above the neck : it resembles, therefore, the wild 

 goose in its colors ; but its magnitude and the prominent tuber- 

 cle at the root of its bill mark a small affinity to the swan ; 

 yet it differs from both by its inflated throat, which hangs 

 down like a pouch, or little dewlap ; a very evident character, 

 which has procured to these birds the denomination Jabotieres 

 (from Jabot, the Crane.) Africa, and perhaps the other 

 southern countries of the old continent, seem to be their native 

 abode ; and though Linnaeus has termed them Siberian geese, 

 they are not indigenous in Siberia, but have been carried 

 thither and multiplied in a state of domestication, as in Sweden 

 and Germany. Frisch relates that, having repeatedly shown 

 to Russians geese of this kind, which were reared in his court- 

 yard, they all, without hesitation, called them Guinea geese, 

 and not Russian or Siberian geese. Yet has the inaccurate 

 denomination of Linnaeus misled Brisson, who describes this 

 goose under its true name of Guinea goose, and again, a second 

 time, under that of Muscovy goose, without perceiving that 

 his two descriptions refer precisely to the same bird." 



" It is somewhat larger," says Brisson, " than the tame 

 goose ; the head and the top of the neck are brown, deeper 

 on the upper side that on the under ; * * * * on the origin 

 of the bill there rises a round and fleshy tubercle ; * * * 

 under the throat also there hangs a sort of fleshy membrane." 



Mr. Giles, an original importer of this breed, in a letter to 

 the author, thus describes it : 



" The Guinea goose shall stand forth first ; brown-gray 

 on the back, light-gray on the fore-front, brown on the head 



