﻿52 ANATID/E. 



Under this impression we consigned the individual to the 

 household authorities to have it dressed for dinner, not 

 doubting its qualifications for the table ; we reserved only 

 the head, foot, and wing for future examination. But, 

 to our dismay, on meeting with our goose again on the 

 table, we ascertained its total unfitness for the purpose for 

 which we had destined it, as its flesh was so strongly tainted 

 with a fishy and rancid flavour as to be entirely unpalat- 

 able ; so much so that it was finally rejected even by 

 the quadrupeds of the family. 



We now, however, doubly regretted having destroyed 

 a specimen, with the exception of the fragments before 

 mentioned, of what now appeared to us an undoubtedly 

 wild bird, and one that, as far as we could ascertain, was 

 hitherto unknown to naturalists, or at least undescribed. 

 The only compensation we could make to ourselves was 

 to figure the bird in our quarto edition of British Birds, 

 in hopes that some one of our contemporaries might be 

 more enlightened than we ourselves were on the subject of 

 its name and history. 



With the same view we again figure our Cream-coloured 

 Goose in the present work, hoping that time will unfold its 

 history, which we have in vain sought in the works of many 

 ornithologists of Europe and America. 



The entire length, from the tip of the beak to the 

 extremity of the tail, was two feet three inches ; its weight 

 six pounds ; expanse of the wings three feet ; the tail 

 extended four inches beyond the tips of the wings ; the 

 toes, when the bird was held up, reached to the tip of 

 the tail ; the beak, from the tip to the forehead, two inches 

 three lines, from the gape two inches nine lines, the same 

 from the frontal corners to the tip ; from the tip of the 

 beak to front corner of the eye three inches six lines ; 



