174 ANATID^E. 



the feathers exhibiting no marks of confinement, occurs so 

 frequently, in so many different localities, and more par- 

 ticularly in such numbers, a flock of about eighty having 

 been seen together on one occasion in Hampshire ; these 

 facts, in conjunction with the statement of M. Temminck, 

 that he had not admitted it among the Birds of Europe in 

 his Manual, till he had ascertained to a certainty the 

 appearance of individuals in a wild state in several parts of 

 southern Europe, seem to justify recording it also among 

 the occasional visiters to this country. M. Temminck says 

 this species inhabits the whole of Africa from the north to 

 the middle ; it is found also in Turkey, visits the mouths of 

 the Danube, and occasionally the islands of the Grecian 

 Archipelago ; has been killed in Sicily, and it is said, also, 

 in several parts of Germany. M. De Selys-Lonchamps 

 sent him word that a specimen had been killed upon the 

 Meuse, and another at Liege. Three have also been 

 killed near Metz. 



The breeding habits of this bird, in a wild state, are, I 

 believe, but little known : they hatch and rear their young 

 without difficulty in confinement, and have bred several 

 seasons in succession in the gardens of the Zoological 

 Society. The eggs are of a dull white, tinged with buff 

 colour, two inches nine lines in length, by two inches in 

 breadth. The editor of the Naturalist says, " the Egyptian 

 Goose quacks in a manner somewhat similar to the Mallard 

 Duck, but the note is more like barking." Vol. ii. p. 385. 



In the summer of 1838, an Egyptian Goose, in the 

 garden of the Zoological Society, paired with a Penguin 

 Drake,* and the eggs were productive. The same two 

 birds were kept together in the following season, and the 



* The Penguin Duck, so called from its walking nearly upright, is only a 

 variety of the Common Domestic Duck. 



