1902.] F. Finn — General Notes on Variation in Birds. 175 



more — come silver-grey ; and strange to say, tlicy are always ganders, 

 and generally remarkably fine, and superior to tlieir brothers. I have 

 never yet bred a single goose of this lighter shade." 



(c) Pure white, correct for Embden and Sebastopol breeds. 



(d) Sandy-coloured ; never seen by me. " Sandy-coloured (common) 

 geese are not infrequent in some parts." (Rev. Dr. Goodacre on The 

 Question of the Identity of Species of the Common, Domestic and the Chinese 

 Goose, P. Z. S., 1879, £>.' 711.) 



The bill and feet in all tame birds are usually orange, but still a 

 good many have flesh-coloured feet. The iridos are dark except in 

 white or light-pied birds, wherein they are blue. 



Pied intermediates are common, ranging from white-quilled birds 

 to the more common type of white bod}' with grey neck and head, 

 patch on back, and one on each flank. Ganders are almost always 

 white in rough-bred geese ; seldom grey, and still more seldom pied. 



Mr. Hewitt found that in crossing the Embden and Toulouse, for 

 which he preferred females of the latter and a male of the former, that 

 the goslings came " 'saddle-backed' in the feather, with the head and 

 upper portion of the neck grey, and a patch of the same colour on the 

 thighs, the whole of the remainder of the plumage being white. Sin- 

 gularly enough, the majority of the young ganders and a fair proportion 

 of the geese thus bred are slightly crested, though this peculiarity is 

 not possessed by either parent." (Cassell's Illustrated Boole of Poultry, 

 p. 562.) Tame geese are much heavier in build than wild, but can fly. 



The Pink-footed Goose (Anser brachyrhynchus) produces a variety 

 with the feet and band across the bill oi'ange instead of pink in the 

 wild state (see Sir R. Payne-Gallwey, Letters to Young Shooters, p..Q9, 

 foot-note). The same variation occurs in semi-domestication. 



Mr. Cecil Smith, in Mr. H. E. Dresser's Birds of Europe (pp. 71 

 72, published 1878), writes :— 



" My original pair were perfectly true Pink-footed Geese, there 

 being no suspicion of orange about the bill or legs and feet of either ; 

 the colour on these parts, however, became very pale and faded after 

 the breeding-season, and continued so long into the autumn, but to- 

 wards the end of autumn it got much brighter, the colour being most 

 intense at the beginuing of the breeding-season ; it is the same with those 

 of their young which have orange legs and bills. This pair hatched 

 three young in 1872 ; of these only one l'eached maturity. The leg 9 

 and bills of the young were all alike, very dark olive-green, showing 

 no trace of pink as long as they were in the down ; but soon after they 

 began to assume their feathers the colour on the legs and bills began to 

 disclose itself, and those parts in the only survivor of this brood were 



