Chap. YIU. DOMESTIC GOOSE. 303 



young of wliicli can easily be tamed. -^ Tins species, when 

 crossed Avith the domestic goose, produced in the Zoological 

 Gardens, as I was assured in 1849, perfectly fertile offspring.-^ 

 Yarrell '-■* has observed that the lower part of the trachea of 

 the domestic goose is sometimes flattened, and that a ring of 

 white feathers sometimes surrounds the base of the beak. 

 These characters seem at first sight gnod indications of a 

 cross at some former period with the white- fronted goose 

 {A. albifrons) ; but the white ring is variable in this latter 

 species, and we must not overlook the law of analogous varia- 

 tion ; that is, of one species assuming some of the characters 

 of allied species. 



As the goose has proved so little flexible in its organization 

 under long-continued domestication, the amount of variation 

 which it has undergone may be worth giving. It has increased 

 in size and in productiveness ;^^ and varies from white to a 

 dusky colour. Several observers ^^ have stated that the 

 gander is more frequently white than the goose, and that 

 when old it almost invariably becomes white ; but this is not 

 the case with the parent-form, the A ferus. Here, again, the 

 law of analogous variation may have come into play, as the 

 almost snow-white male of the Hock goose {Bernicla antarctica) 

 standing on the sea- shore by his dusky partner is a sight 

 well known to those who have traversed the sounds of Tierra 

 del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. Some geese have top- 

 knots ; and the skull beneath, as before stated, is perforated. 

 A sab-breed has lately been formed with the feathers reversed 

 at tlie back of the head and neck.-^ The beak varies a little 

 in size, and is of a yellower tint than in the wild species ; but 



-- Mr. A. Strickland (' Annals and the wild goose lays from five to eight 



Mag. of Nat. Hist.,' 3rd series, vol. eggs, which is a much fewer number 



iii. 1859, p. 122) reared some young than that laid by our domestic goose, 



wild geese, and found them in habits ^^ The Kev. L. Jenyns seems first 



and in all characters identical with to have made this observation in his 



the domestic goose. 'British Animals.' <SVt' also Yarrell, 



*^ /S'et' also Hunter's ' Essays,' edited and L)ixon in his ' Ornamental Poul- 



by Owen, vol. ii. p. ,S22. try ' (p. 139), and ' Gardener's Chroni- 



"* Yarrell's 'British Birds,' vol. iii. cle,' 1857, p. 45. 



p. 142. 27 Mr. Bartlet exhibitid the head 



^^ L. Lloyd, 'Scandinavian Adven- and neck of a bird thus characterised 



Uires,' 1854, vol. ii. p. 413, says that before the Zoological Soc, Feb. 1860. 



