568 The Illustrated Bock of Poultry. 



cases, no doubt, such specimens may have been escaped birds from parks or menaf^eries ; but this 

 could hardly be the case with a flock of nine seen at the Isle of Man in 1838, and another flock, 

 estimated at no less than eighty, seen in Hampshire, after a tremendous gale. In the southern 

 parts of Europe it is common enough, no doubt crossing the Mediterranean from Africa, its native 

 home. Its place in history is well marked — perhaps more so than that of any other variety. It is 

 clearly alluded to by Aristotle, Aristophanes, Athena^us, and other writers; and Herodotus makes 

 special mention of it among the sacred birds of Egypt; while Mr. Salt states that wherever the 

 goose is represented on the walls of temples, this variety is clearly recognisable. 



In the Regent's Park Gardens, in 1838, Mr. Yarrell states, a female Egyptian Goose paired 

 with a male of the Penguin variety of ducks, and the eggs were fertile. This occurred during 

 two successive seasons. The Penguin being a mere artificial variety of the common duck, this 

 would appear to give the Nile Goose a somewhat intermediate position between the duck and 

 goose tribes, and its affinity to the Shieldrakes is indeed evident to any observer. 



THE GAMBIAN GOOSE, called also the Spur-winged Goose {Pkclroptrnts Gambe/isis), 

 has been rarely seen at shows. Like the Nile Goose, it has a spur instead of a knob on the wrist- 

 joint of the wing, but in this bird the spur is more developed and very powerful. The beak has at 

 the base a large excrescence, as in the Swans or Chinese Goose, and the toes are somewhat long. 

 The plumage is black and white ; the cheeks, throat, under parts, and shoulders of wing being 

 generally white, and other parts bright green black. The eyes are reddish brown, the bill and legs 

 dull red. The carriage is very upright and tall. This goose is shy in confinement, but has been 

 known to breed. 



THE SEBASTOPOL GOOSE. — This singular variety appears to be not uncommon on the 

 Danube, and has been called the Danubian Goose, though generally known by the name first 

 mentioned. It appears to be a variety of the common goose, breeding freely with it, and the 

 progeny being perfectly fertile ; the shape also resembling it, and the sole peculiarity being in the 

 plumage, which somewhat resembles in character that of the Frizzled Fowl. Mr. Fowler makes 

 the following remarks upon this breed: — 



"They are of the same colour as the Embdens, pure white ; their peculiarity being that their 

 feathers appear to grow the wrong way, and from the tail and saddle they have long trailing 

 feathers, beautifully curved like the sickle-feathers of a Dorking cock, but so thin in the quill that 

 the least breeze blows them about. Altogether they are most curious in appearance, and they once 

 brought forth from an American friend the remark tliat ' they must surely have been hatched in 

 a gale of wind.' They seem to be. rare in this country, though they certainly deserve more 

 attention, being a very great addition to our ornamental varieties of water-fowl." 



We have already compared the plumage of Sebastopol Geese to that of the Frizzled Fowl ; 

 and it will be noticed as a curious coincidence, that both alike have been described — one by Mr. 

 Tollemache and the other by Mr. Fowler — as resembling birds ruffied by a gale of wind. But on 

 closer examination the comparison only partially holds ; for while the feathers of the frizzled birds 

 have considerable strength, and are as a rule properly webbed, those of the Sebastopol Geese are 

 very weak, and partially destitute of adhesion in the barbules, thus resembling in a considerable 

 degree those of the Silky Fowl, and being, in fact, midway in character between the Silky and the 

 Frizzled. There is, however, a special peculiarity in these feathers, as already quoted from Mr. 

 Darwin at page 407, in that the stems of the feathers are in many places themselves split up into 

 narrow filaments, A\hich are furnished with barbules, and for the time resemble, therefore, the barbs 



