EGYPTIAN GOOSE 199 



postponed, first to February in 1844, and then to March, 1846. By 1854 the birds 

 were nesting in April (I. G. de St. Hilaire, Domestication et naturalization des ani- 

 maux utiles, p. 85, 1854). The hatching dates given by P. L. Sclater (1880) for the 

 London Gardens are very irregular, extending from March 4 to July 18, for the period 

 from 1837 to 1879. Free-flying birds in the Berlin Gardens bred at the end of the 

 first year (Heinroth, Journ. f. Ornith., vol. 63, p. 301, 1915). 



A most interesting note on the fertility of these birds was given me by Donald 

 Mac Vicar, head keeper on the Deering estate near Miami, Florida. He writes me 

 that a pair which he had in 1918 reared three broods during that season, the last one 

 in the autumn. There could have been no mistake because he had only one pair. 

 This habit of nesting more than once has been continued since that time and the 

 Australian Black Swans have done the same thing. 



Egyptian Geese live to a considerable age in confinement. The Giza Gardens had 

 specimens twelve years old (Flower, 1910) and the London Gardens in 1883 had one 

 specimen that had been received twenty years before, while others were nineteen, 

 sixteen, and fifteen years of age (P. L. Sclater, 1883). Schmidt (1878) states that in 

 the Gardens at Frankfort a. M. they lived from sixteen and a half to seventeen years. 

 The price of the birds has always been reasonable, both in England and in this 

 country, and although they could formerly be purchased at from $12.00 to $15.00 a 

 pair, aviculturalists have usually hesitated before acquiring such obstreperous pets. 

 Wallace Evans, however, raised many on his game-farm at St. Charles, Illinois, and 

 informed me that he found them extremely prolific and the young easy to rear. 



Heinroth's observations on the Nile Goose and the Ruddy Sheldrake led him to 

 suppose that brother and sister will not pair, a fact of great interest and significance. 



Domestication. Next to the Mallard, the Muscovy, and the Domesticated Goose, 

 this species is more susceptible of true domestication than any other of the Anatidce. 

 Some believed it to have been truly domesticated by the ancients, but I must confess 

 that I am by no means convinced of this. It is possible, however, that a domesticated 

 breed of Nile Geese in Egypt was superseded by the European Gray Goose which was 

 domesticated later by the Greeks. At any rate the Egyptian Goose was highly prized 

 during the early dynastic period, and was doubtless kept for its ornamental value. 

 In our day some of the Boers of South Africa keep Egyptian Geese in a semi-domes- 

 ticated state, chiefly because of their vigilance and promptness in sounding an alarm 

 in case of danger, just as Tree Ducks are kept. Holub and von Pelzeln (1882), who 

 give a full account of this practice, dilate especially on their attachment to certain 

 localities and on their great usefulness in giving the alarm. 



These geese have hybridized in confinement with the Mallard, the Spur-wing 

 Goose, the Orinoco Goose, the Ruddy Sheldrake, the Chinese Goose (Cygnopsis 

 cygnoides) and the Common Sheldrake. 



