THE CANADA GOOSE. 
285 
cuous member of the poultry yard. Mr. Waterton^ in the 
second series of his ^Essays on Natural History"^/ gives a 
laughable account of the breeding of a Bernacle gander 
with a Canada goose at Walton Hall. He says : — " Nothing 
could exceed the assiduity with which the little Bernacle 
stood guards often on one leg^ over his bulky partner^ day 
after day^ as she was performing her tedious task. If any- 
body ai^proached the place his cackling was incessant; he 
would run at him with the fury of a turkey-cock j he would 
jump up at his knees^ and not desist in his aggressions until 
the intruder had retired. There was something so remark- 
ably disproportionate betwixt this goose and gander, that 
I gave to this the name of Mopsus, and to that the name 
of Nisa ; and I would sometimes ask the splendid Canadian 
Msa, as she sat on her eggs, how she could possibly have 
lost her heart to so diminutive a little fellow as Bernacle 
Mopsus, when she had so many of her own comely species 
present from which to choose a happy and efficient partner." 
The goslings partook of the plumage of both species, and 
were intermediate in size. 
One of the largest and most curious of the marine ducks 
is a species met with among the Falkland Islands, and in 
* P. 114. 
