660 AVES— WILD GOOSE. 



a swan, and its Avings, when extended, ten feet from tip to tip. The bill, 

 which is six inches long, is yellowish, and terminates in a crooked point. 

 The top of the head is of a bright brown ; the back is of a dirty, deep spotted 

 brown ; and the belly, and under the wings, is white. The toes, which are 

 webbed, are of a flesh color. 



This bird is an inhabitant of the tropical climates, and also beyond them, 

 as far as the Straits of Magellan, in the South seas. It not only eats fish, 

 but also such small water-fowl as it can take by surprise. It preys, as the 

 gull kind do, upon the wing, and chiefly pursues the flying fish that are 

 forced from the sea by the dolphins. 



The albatross seems to have a peculiar affection for the penguin, and a 

 pleasure in its society. They are always seen to choose the same places of 

 breeding ; some distant, uninhabited island, where the ground slants to the 

 sea, as the penguin is not formed either for flying or climbing. In such 

 places their nests are seen together, as if they stood in need of mutual assist- 

 ance and protection. In the middle, on high, the albatross raises its nest on 

 heath, sticks, and long grass, about two feet above the surface ; and round 

 this the penguins make their lower settlements, rather in holes in the 

 ground ; and most usually eight penguins to one albatross. 



There are about three other species of albatross, all of them smaller than 

 the preceding. The upper parts of the plumage are a dusky blue black, 

 and the rump and under parts white ; but what peculiarly distinguishes it 

 is, that the bill, which is four inches long, is black, all but the upper ridge, 

 which is yellow quite to the tip. It inhabits the South seas within the 

 tropics. 



THE AMERICAN WILD GOOSE. i 



This is a bird universally known over the whole country, and whose regu- 

 lar periodical migrations are the sure signals of returning spring, or 

 approaching winter. I have never yet visited, says Wilson, any quarter of 

 the country, where the inhabitants are not familiarly acquainted with the 

 passing and repassing of the wild geese. The general opinion here is, that 

 they are on their way to the lakes to breed; but the inhabitants on the con- 



1 Anas canadensis, Lin. The genus Anas has the bill middle-sized, robust, straight, 

 more or less depressed, covered by a thin skin, often deeper than broad at the base, which 

 is furnished with a fleshy tubercle, or smooth ; always depressed towards the tip, which 

 is obtuse and furnished with a nail ; edges of both mandibles divided into conical or flat 

 lamellated teeth ; nostrils almost at the surface of the bill, at some distance from the base, 

 ovoid, half closed by the flat membrane that covers the nasal furrow ; legs short, feathered 

 to the knee, and placed near the abdomen ; the three fore toes webbed ; the hinder detach- 

 ed, and either destitute of a web, or having only a rudimentary one. 



