420 
The Hiflory of' A N I 
i 
A L S« 
Anas rojlro femycylindrico , bafi gihbo , 
The Anas , # femicylmdric beak , 
gibbofe at the bafe . 
This is a very fingular bird, and has fo much of the (lately appearance of the fwan, 
and at the fame time alfo fo much of the general figure of the goofe, that people 
who have judged only by the general figure, in thefe cafes, have not known to which 
of the two kinds they fhould refer it. It is of the fize of the largeft goofe : the neck, 
is very long, and the legs fhort: the head is round and large ; the eyes are mode¬ 
rately large, and the beak is of a femicylindric figure, and remarkably long and large: 
the back is of a dufky brown colour; the belly is of a fnow-white : the throat and 
bread are not abfolutely white, but have a tinge of reddifh-brown, that is extreamly 
beautiful, and on the back part of the neck there runs a brownifh-black line all the 
way down, from the head to the very back: the beak is black, and the fingular and 
obvious charadteriftic of the bird is, that there is a very large flefhy tubercle at it’s bafe, 
which hangs over it: this is larger in the male than in the females, and is much larger 
alfo in birds of five or fix years old, than in thofe of only a year or two. 
The wings are long, and are of the fame dark colour with the back, only that the 
tips of fome of the long feathers are white: the tail is fhort and inconfiderable, and 
the tips of it’s feathers are alfo white. 
The legs are fhort, but very robud and thick, and the feet are very broad, all the 
toes being long and conneded together to the ends with a membrane: the legs are 
red, and the beak is alfo fometimes red, but it is .more ufually black; and over it’s 
bafe, or between that and the eyes, there always runs a beautiful flreak of white i 
the hinder toe is fhort, and all the claws are obtufe. 
This is a native of the Ead, and of fome parts of America; we have it kept for 
it’s beauty in many parts of Europe. It loves the water, but it is much better quali¬ 
fied for walking on land than the fwan, and often does it on choice, the other never. 
Whether walking or fwimming, it carries it’s head and neck in the fame ftately, eredt 
manner as the fwan. Mod of the writers on birds have defcribed it. Ray calls it 
Anfer Cygneus Guinienfis; Willughby, Anfer Bifanicus vel potius Guinienfis. We 
call it the Swan-goofe, and the Spanifh goofe, the Turkifh goofe, the Guinea-goofe, 
and the Siberian goofe ; there are indeed fo many parts of the world where it is ha- 
tive, that it may be very varioufly named from them. 
Anas rojlro femicylindrico , corporefupra cinereo , fubtus albido , 
re&ricibus margine albis . 
The brown-backed\ white-bellied Anas, with the edges of the 
wing feathers white . 
This is too common a bird to need a long defcription : the head is large and round¬ 
ed ; the beak large, and of a femicylindric figure, as in the fwan ; the eyes are large, 
and the noftrils oblong: the back is naturally of a mixt colour, compofed of brown, 
and grey, but it varies extreamly in this refped, when kept tame, which in it’s wild 
date it is very regular in it. 
The legs and the beak are yellow, while the bird is young, but they become red¬ 
difh, as it grows to maturity : the wings are confiderably long, and fo well feather¬ 
ed, that, though the body be very bulky, they can fupport it with great eafe in 
very long flights: they are of the colour of the back, but with more of the giey and 
lefs of the brown in it: the long feathers are twenty-feven in each wing, and the 
edges of many of them are white: the tad is fhort and inconfiderable, but it is long¬ 
er, in proportion, than in the fwan; it is compofed of eighteen feathers ; thefe aie 
1 1 {honeR 
