138 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



FIG. 64. Foot of Anseranas. 



toes. The bill is short, very thick at base, its upper outline strongly convex ; nearly 

 the whole beak to a little behind the large nail is covered with a tumid cere of a 

 lightly greenish yellow color, in the anterior part of which the roundish nostrils open. 

 In regard to the peculiarities of the skull itself we only speak of the proportionately 

 short lachrymal region, a part which in typical Anseres is very much elongated. The 

 keel of the sternum is very deep, its inferior edge very curved, and the anterior angle 

 pointing comparatively far forwards. 



The color of the Cereopsis, or Cape Barren goose, as it is called by the colonists, is 

 of a beautiful brownish ash, lighter on the top of the head, and with roundish black 

 spots on the wing-coverts. The eye is vermilion red, the tarsus orange, and the toes 

 and webs blackish. Anomalous as is the structure of this bird, its habits are not less 

 so, it being a ' swimmer ' which carefully and entirely avoids the water. It inhabits the 

 interior dry plains, its diet being, of course, exclusively vegetable. It is a ' swimmer ' 

 and ' sifter ' modified into a ' grazer.' Needless to say that its dark flesh is delicious 

 eating, and, consequently, these shy birds have been persecuted mercilessly both by 

 the natives and by the white settlers, the result being that the Cereopsis had become 

 so scarce, as early as Gould's travels in Australia, that ' the old bushman ' only met it 



twice in a wild state. It breeds, how- 

 ever, in confinement, and is easily tamed, 

 but as it is very pugnacious and impe- 

 rious it is not a desirable addition to the 

 poultry-yard, and the rather extensive 

 domestication of this bird, which sprang 

 up during the early days of the colony, has gradually subsided. 



Australia is the habitat of another not less remarkable goose-like 

 bird, the peculiarities of which seem to us too great to allow it to be 

 kept in the other families, and hence we would make it the type of 

 the A^SEEANATID^E. It has usually been referred to the following 

 group, to which it, perhaps, may also be nearest allied, but who 

 would recognize the foot represented in the cut as that of a goose? 

 The long front toes, only united at base by a small membrane, and armed 

 with long and sharp claws, and especially the remarkably lengthened and 

 strong hind toe, which is inserted nearly at the same level as the others, 

 are characters so unique among Anseres that a separate position can hardly 

 be denied the owner, and the feet, indeed, strongly suggest those of the screamers. 

 The bill is also very peculiar, a warty skin covering the beak from the nail and the 

 face to behind the eyes. The convolutions and position of the windpipe are most 

 extraordinary and deserve to be mentioned. Yarrell, who made this part of the bird's 

 anatomy a special study, describes the windpipe thus : " The trachea is situated on 

 the outside of the left pectoral muscle, under the skin, sufficiently raised under the 

 wing that respiration would not be impeded when the bird rested with its breast 

 on the ground, the parallel tubes being firmly attached both to the muscle and the 

 skin by cellular tissue. The clavicle of the right side of the bird is of the usual 

 character, but that on the left is both shorter and wider, having an aperture about 

 the middle, the sides diverging with a projecting point on the inner side, to which 

 the tube of the trachea is firmly attached, about two inches above the bone of divari- 

 cation. The trachea lying on the left side of the bird, the lower portion of the tube, 

 in its passage to the lung, crosses the left branch of the furcula at a right angle, 



