to tlie south of Cairo, and throughout the greater part of
tropical Africa. There it is said to be partial to holes, and
Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., observed it frequenting the ledges
of lofty and inaccessible cliffs for nesting purposes ; but
birds hatch and rear their young very freely in confinement.
The eggs are of a dull huffish-white, measuring 2-8 by 2 in.
The note is like the barking of a dog. In its manner of
feeding this bird is decidedly Anserine.
In the summer of 1888, an Egyptian Goose, in the garden
of the Zoological Society, paired with a Penguin Drake,* the
eggs being productive; and again in the following season,
when the young birds were preserved, and kept by themselves
experimentally. Next year many eggs were produced
between these hybrids, but the eggs were not productive, and
exhibited no embryos. An Egyptian Goose has bred with
the Knobbed or Swan Gander (A. cygnoides), and with the
Spur-winged Gander (IJ. gambensis), at the Dublin Zoological
Society in the Phoenix Park.
The upper mandible of the beak is horn-colour, tipped with
pink; the under one cherry-red; nail, margins, and base
dark brown ; irides wax-yellow ; round the eye a patch of
cliestnut-brown; cheeks and sides of the neck pale rufous-
white ; forehead, crown of the head, back of the neck, the
back, and scapulars, rich reddish-brown ; carpal portion of
the wing, and wing-coverts, white; the smaller coverts tipped
with black; wing-primaries almost black, tinged with green ;
the secondaries tinged with reddish-bay, and edged with
chestnut; lower part of the back, rump, and tail, nearly
black ; front of the neck, breast, anr1 upper part of the belly,
pale rufous-brown, a patch on the breast chestnut-brown;
lower part of the belly and the vent pale brown; legs and
feet pink.
The whole length of an adult male is about twenty-six
inches. The distribution of colours is the same in females
as in males, but the tints are less bright and pure. The
wing is furnished with a short blunt spur at the wrist.
The Penguin Duck, so called from its walking nearly upright, is only a
variety of the Common Domestic Duck.
In a young bird hatched at Mr. Cecil Smith’s, in March
1882, which flew away and was shot in August, the head was
more mottled, and the under parts and mantle more marked
with grey and brown vermiculations than in the adult; the
secondary wing-coverts white with grey and black margins,
forming an ill-defined bar ; tail nearly black, mottled with
brown ; line at the base of the bill pink, and not black, as in
the adult; feet dull pink.
A nestling had the bill liorn-black; upper parts dark
brownish-grey ; under parts dirty-white ; feet clay-coloured.
The tube of the windpipe is about twelve inches long,
nearly cylindrical in form throughout; but, unlike those of
the other Geese, the male has a hollow bony enlargement,
half as thick as it is wide, at the bottom of the tube on the
left side, as shown in the vignette below, where the lower
portion of the windpipe, the bony enlargement, and the short
depending bronchial tubes, the last slightly connected by a
thin slip of membrane, are figured of the natural size. The
view is taken with the tube and its enlargement in the
natural position, the breast-bone being removed, as in the
case of the view of the windpipe of the Spoonbill figured in
the present volume.