marks of confinement, occurs so frequently, in so many» different
localities, and more particularly in such numbers, a
flock of about eighty having been seen together on one occasion
in Hampshire; these facts, in conjunction with the
statement of M. Temminck, that he had not admitted it
among the Birds of Europe in his Manual, till he had ascertained
to a certainty the appear^pce of individuals in a wild
state in several parts of southern Europe, seem to justify re- '
cording it also among the occasional visiters to this country.
M. Temminck says this Species inhabits the whole of Africa
from the north to the middle i it is found also in Turkey,
visits the mouths of the Danube, and occasionally the islands
of the Grecian Archipelago ; has „been killed in Sicily, and it is
said, also, in several parts of Germany. M. Selys-Lonchamps
sent him word that a specimen had been killed- upon the
Meuse, and another at Liege.
One point of interest must not be omitted. Our Egyptian
Goose is the Vulpanser of the ancients. On this subject Mr.
Salt, the Egyptian traveller, in his Essay on the' Phonetic
System of Hieroglyphics, observesj ‘1 Horus Apollo says, Fi-
lium yolentes significarevulpanserem pingunt,and adds a reason
for it that holds good to this day—-that the old geese stay
with their young in the most imminent danger, at the risk
of their own lives, which"! have myself frequently witnessed.
Vulpanser is the_Goose of the Nile, and wherever this Goose
is represented on the walls of the temples in colours, the resemblance.
may be clearly traced.” Page 18, note.
The breeding habits of this bird, in a wild state, are, I
believe, but little known: they hatch and rear their young
without difficulty in confinement, and have bred several seasons
in succession in the gardens of the Zoological Society.
The eggs are of a dull white, tinged with, buff colour, two
inches nine lines in length, by two inches' in breadth. The
editor of the Naturalist says, “ the Egyptian Goose quacks
in a manner somewhat similar to the Mallard Duck, but the
note is more like barking,**! Vol. ii. p. 885.
In>the summer of 18$8, an Egyptian Gofose, in the garden
of the- Zoological Society, paired with a Penguin Drake,* and
the eggs were productive. The same two birds were kept
together in thé following season, and the result was, more
productive eggs. The young birds were preserved, and kept
by themselves experimentally. In the following season many
eggs were produced between these hybrid brothers and sisters,
the females sat steadily, but the eggs were not productive, and
•those examined exhibited no appearance of émbryotic formation.
Besides various instances of single specimens of the Egyptian
Goose having been obtained in this country, a flock of
five' were seen on the Fern Islands in April 1880. A small
flock visited the Tweed- in February 1889. Three were
shot, at Campsie, near Glasgow,- in November 1882. Mr,
Wallace^ of Douglas, sent me word that a flock of nine were
seen in thé Isle of Man, in September 1888. : This species
has been killed in Ireland. Four were shot o n ’the Severn^
near Bridgwater, in February 1840; two were shot in Dor-
setshire, in 1886 ; and Colonel Hawker mentions “ two killed
m iforfolk, and three at Longparish in Hampshire, in the
winter of 1828; and the next year again, during some .tremendous
gales from the west, a flock of about eighty appeared
near the same place, when two more were killed.”
The beak in the centre is pale brown; the nail, the margins,
and the base dark bijpwn; the irides wax yellow; round
the eye a patch of chestnut brown ; cheeks and sides of the
neck pale rufous white; forehead, crown of the head, back of
the neck, the back scapulars and tertials, rich reddish-brown;
the carpal portion of the wing, the smaller and the larger
* The Penguin Duck, so called from its walking nearly upright, is only a
variety of the Common Domestic Duck.