5^ British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



ORDER ANSERES. 



THE Birds which compose this large and important Order, familiarly known 

 as Geese, Swans, Ducks, and Mergansers, form a very distinct and natural 

 group, a well defined family having many points and characters in common, differing 

 however, as will be seen, in their habits, and graduating from the grass-eating 

 Geese to the fish-eating Mergansers. 



The Anatidts possess, in common, a laminated bill, covered with a soft skin, 

 and having a hard tip to both mandibles, called the nail; they have also, com- 

 paratively, short legs and webbed feet. They are all water-birds, and swim with 

 facility, and many are most expert divers. They can fly strong and rapidly, having 

 the head and neck extended to the full. If we exclude the game birds, no other 

 Order contains so many species offering a large and valuable supply of food for man. 



Generally speaking, the nest is on the ground, not far from water, and in 

 some few species holes and ledges of rocks, and excavations and burrows in the 

 soil, and the decayed hollows in trees, are utilised for nesting purposes. In all 

 cases the nest is made of much the same materials : fragments of reeds, rushes, 

 grasses, moss, turf, and various aquatic plants ; and the eggs are placed in a 

 plentiful bed of down, or mixed down and feathers, from the breast of the female 

 bird. The eggs are without any conspicuous markings, from ivory-white to bright 

 green, and various shades of pale green and buff. The young are at first covered 

 with a close coat of down, and take to the water as soon as they leave the shell. 



The stomach in the AnatidcB is very muscular, particularly in the shell-fish 

 eating species. Tlie trachea varies greatly, and in the males often exhibits extra- 

 ordinary peculiarities and enlargements. 



The various species which make up the family Anatidce, included in the British 

 list, have been divided into seventeen genera, specified as follows : — 



1 Anser, Brisson. — This includes the four large Grey Geese, and the Lesser 

 White-fronted Goose, which some ornithologists are inclined not to recognize as a 

 separate species from the White-fronted Goose. 



2 Chen, F. Boie. — The Snow- Goose, a North American bird. 



