248 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



stand. Sundevall prefers the reading axwKo<pl\oi (fond of one 

 another), but ax^xofixx, 01 (fighting one another), which has also 

 been proposed, would be the best reading, for the young Swans 

 fight furiously during the mating season. Athengeus, quoting 

 Aristotle in the ' Deipnosophistai,' ix. 49, says that Swans are 

 disposed to fight, and that they kill one another. The remark- 

 able passage on the Swan in Hist. Anim. ix. 13, 2, has not been 

 given above in full, but it recalls forcibly Portia's pretty speech, 

 delivered when Bassanio is about to make his fateful choice of 

 the caskets. 



The Goose (chen) referred to by Aristotle appears to have 

 been Anser cinereus, and perhaps A. segetum, which occurs in 

 company with A. cinereus in Greece and Asia Minor. A. albi- 

 frons, which is about five inches shorter than A. cinereus, and 

 four shorter than A. segetum, may be Aristotle's small chen. It 

 is not uncommon in Greece during cold winters. Beion and 

 Billerbeck regarded the chen as the Domestic Goose, and the 

 small chen as the Wild Goose ; and Sundevall identified the chen 

 mainly with the Domestic Goose, and the small chen as A. albi- 

 frons. It may be mentioned that Aristophanes, with his usual 

 charming drollery, assigns to the chenes the genial task of using 

 their feet like spades in working the mud for the walls of 

 Nephelococcugia, or Cloud-cuckoo City. 



Aristotle's meagre references to chenalopex (the Fox-goose) 

 can, fortunately, be supplemented by a passage in Herodotus 

 (book ii. c. 72), which states that the lepidotus and eel of the 

 Nile, and also the chenalopex, among birds, are sacred ; and by a 

 passage in Athenseus, ix. 52, referring to a kind of boscades 

 larger than netta, but smaller than chenalopex. Pliny also says 

 that chenalopex belongs to the family of Geese, and iElian states 

 that it has the appearance of a Goose, but is smaller and bolder. 

 There is no doubt that chenalopex was the Egyptian Goose 

 (Chenalopex cegyptiacus) , which was emblematic of Seb, the 

 father of Osiris, according to Rawlinson. The bird's name 

 (chenalopex), and its corresponding Latin name (vulpanser), are 

 appropriate to the Egyptian Goose, which, Rawlinson says, dis- 

 plays great courage and cunning in protecting its young ; iElian 

 also says that it can be compared to the Fox in cunning. 

 Schneider suggests that Anas tadorna, Linn., the Burrow-duck 





