decorate the charming gardens of Chantilly." The wild stock whence these birds were taken are found in the northern parts of America; they are one of those immense families, which, when associated with others of the same genus, are said, at certain seasons, to darken the air like a cloud, and to spread themselves over the lakes and swamps in innumerable multitudes.

Mr Pennant, in his Arctic Zoology, gives the following interesting account of the mode of taking the Canada Goose in Hudson's Bay :

"The English of Hudson's Bay depend greatly on Geese, of these and other kinds, for their support; and, in favourable years, kill three or four thousand, which they salt and barrel. Their arrival is impatiently attended; it is the harbinger of the spring, and the month named by the Indians the Goose moon. They appear usually at our settlements in numbers, about St George's day, O. S. and fly northward to nestle in security. They prefer islands to the continent, as further from the haunts of men. Thus Marble Island was found, in August, to swarm with Swans, Geese and Ducks; the old ones moulting, and the young at that time incapable of flying. "The English send out their servants, as well as Indians, to shoot these birds on their passage. It is in vain to pursue them they therefore form a row of huts made of boughs, at musket-shot distance from each other, and place them in a line across the vast marshes of the country. Each hovel, or, as they are called, stand, is occupied by only a single person. These attend the flight of the birds, and, on their approach, mimic their cackle so well, that the Geese will answer, and wheel and come nearer the stand. The sportsman keeps motionless, and

on his knees, with his gun cocked, the whole time; and never fires till he has seen the eyes of the Geese. He fires as they are going from him, then picks up another gun that lies by him, and discharges that. The Geese which he has killed, he sets up on sticks as if alive, to decoy others; he also makes artificial birds for the same purpose. In a good day (for they fly in very uncertain and unequal numbers) a single Indian will kill two hundred. Notwithstanding every species of Goose has a different call, yet the Indians are admirable in their imitation of every one.

"The vernal flight of the Geese lasts from the middle of April until the middle of May. Their first appearance coincides with the thawing of the swamps, when they are very lean. The autumnal, or the season of their return with their young, is from the middle of August to the middle of October. Those which are taken in this latter season, when the frosts usually begin, are preserved in their feathers, and left to be frozen for the fresh provisions of the winter stock. The feathers constitute an article of commerce, and are sent to England."

THE EGYPTIAN GOOSE.

GANSER, OR GAMBO GOOSE.

(Anas Ægyptiaca, Lin.-L'Oie d'Egypte, Buff.)

THIS beautifully variegated species is nearly of the size of the Grey Lag, or common Wild Goose. The bill red, about two inches in length, tip black, and nostrils dusky: eye-lids red, and the irides pale yellow: the throat, cheeks, and upper part of the head are white: a rusty chesnut-coloured patch on each side of the head surrounds the eyes. About two-thirds of the neck, from the head downwards, is of a pale reddish bay colour, darker at the lower end: a broad deep chesnut-coloured spot covers the middle of the breast: the shoulders and scapulars are of a reddish brown, prettily crossed with numerous dark waved lines: the wing-coverts are white; the greater ones barred near their tips with black: the secondary quills are tinged with reddish bay, and bordered with chesnut; those of the primaries which join them are edged with glossy green, and the rest of the first quills are black: the lower part of the back, the rump and tail, are black: the belly is white, but all the other fore parts, and sides of the body, from the neck to near the vent, are delicately pencilled with narrow rustcoloured zigzag lines on a pale ash-grey ground: each wing is furnished on the bend with a short blunt spur. The colours of the female are pretty much the same as those of the male, but not by any means so bright or distinctly marked.

This kind is common in a wild state in Egypt, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in various parts of the intermediate territories of Africa, whence they have been

brought into, and domesticated in this and other civilized countries, and are now an admired ornament on many pieces of water contiguous to gentlemen's seats; but neither the author nor his correspondents were able to procure a specimen of this or the preceding species, for the purpose of making drawings.

THE Red-breasted Goose measures above twenty inches in length, and its extended wings three feet ten in breadth. The bill is short, of a brown colour, with the nail black: irides yellowish hazel: the cheeks and brow are dusky, speckled with white: an oval white spot occupies the space between the bill and the eyes, and is bounded above, on each side of the head, by a black line which falls down the hinder part of the neck: the chin, throat, crown of the head, and hinder part of the neck to the back, are black: two stripes of white fall down from behind each eye, on the sides of the neck, and meet