PLATE IV. 



GENUS ANSERANAS. fLesson.J 



fJIHIS genus, like Cereopsis, is peculiar to Australia, and contains only one species. 



ANSERANAS MELANOLEUCA. {Gould.) 



SEMI-PALMATED GOOSE. 



rilHIS is a very fine bird, and was once plentiful all over the northern, eastern, and southern colonies ; but the 

 same causes that led to the partial extirpation of the Cereopsis Goose, are gradually thinning out the ranks 

 of this bird. At present the Torres Straits' Coast is most affected by it ; there it occurs in countless 

 multitudes, and forms one of the staple articles of food to the aborigines, who spear it on the wing with wonderful 

 dexterity. Leichhardt and his party found it a most valuable addition to their larder in their perilous journey 

 across from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. He writes thus of the native mode of capturing them : "It seems 

 that they only spear them when flying, and always crouch down when they see a flight of them approaching ; 

 the geese, however, know their enemies so well, that they immediately turn upon seeing a native rise and put his 

 spear into the throwing-stick. Some of my companions asserted that they had often seen them hit their object 

 at the almost incredulous distance of two hundred yards." 



It is a well-known fact that many natatorial birds possess a very singular conformation of the trachea 

 (windpipe) ; but no species shows more remarkable convolutions and situation of the organ in question than the 

 Semi-palmated Goose. " The trachea" says Yarrell, in vol. xv. of the Linnean Transactions, p. 383, " is situated 

 on the outside of the pectoral muscle, under the skin, sufficiently raised under the wing that respiration would 

 not be impeded when the bird rested with its breast on the ground, the parallel tubes being firmly attached both 

 to the muscle and the skin by cellular tissue. The clavicle of the right side of the bird is of the usual character, 

 but that on the left is both shorter and wider, having an aperture about the middle, the sides diverging with a 

 projecting point on the inner side, to which the tube of the trachea is firmly attached, about two inches above the 

 bone of divarication. The trachea lying on the left side of the bird, the lower portion of the tube in its passage 

 to the lungs crosses the left branch of the f urcula at a right angle, but becoming attached to this projection of the 

 clavicle receives from the point described its centrical direction into the body. The whole length of the windpipe 

 is four feet eight inches." 



It is noticeable that there are fewer convolutions in the young bird. 



There are local variations in size, those from the north being smaller birds than those from the south, 

 while the knob on the bill rises higher on the forehead. 



Egg, brownish white ; length, three inches and three-sixteenths (long), two inches and fifteen-sixteenths- 

 (round) ; breadth, two inches and two-sixteenths (long), two inches and two-fifteenths (round). 



Head, neck, wings, centre of the back, tail and thighs, glossy greenish black, the rest of the plumage 

 white ; irides, blackish brown ; bill, reddish brown ; feet, yellow. 



Habitats : Derby, Port Darwin and Port Essington, Gulf of Carpentaria, Rockingham Bay, Port 

 Denison, Wide Bay District, Richmond and Clarence River District, New South Wales, Interior, Victoria, and 

 South Australia. 



