GREY-LAG GOOSE. 143 



own domesticated animals. How it happens that the 

 domestic Goose derived from a wild grey species, should 

 become white^ I am unable to answer ;* but some of those 

 persons who keep Geese, state, that all ganders after a cer- 

 tain age become white. This colour once obtained, there 

 is little or no difficulty in perpetuating it by restriction, 

 and there is a motive for perseverance, as white feathers 

 produce a better price than grey ones. Domestic Geese 

 are said to be very long lived; one is recorded to have 

 lived sixty-four years, and was then killed by mistake. 



There is, however, some reason to believe that one 

 other species, at least, has had some share in establishing 

 our present domestic race. Almost all the species of Geese, 

 Swans, Ducks, and Mergansers, are remarkable for the 

 peculiar form of their organ of voice, or windpipe, and so 

 peculiar as well as permanent is this anatomical character, 

 that the males of the British species of this family, con- 

 sisting of about forty, almost all of them, but more parti- 

 cularly the Swans, Ducks, and Mergansers, can be imme- 

 diately identified by the examination of this organ alone. 

 Figures of these will be hereafter introduced as vignettes 

 to the species to which they belong. In the Wild Grey- 

 lag Goose the tube of the windpipe is nearly cylindrical, 

 and this form of trachea I have frequently found on ex- 

 amination of domestic Geese intended for the table, 

 but I have also frequently found the tube flattened at the 

 lower portion, a character which is constant in the Anser 

 albifrons, or White-fronted Goose ; and there are few 

 persons well acquainted with the appearance of our 

 domestic Geese who have not observed in many of them 

 the white ring of feathers round the base of the beak 



* There arc two white varieties of domestic Ducks derived from the Wild 

 Duck, namely, the English Aylesbuiy Duck and the French Cull Duck. 



