F e m a l i .
P l a c e a n d
M a n n e r s .
head and neck brown, deepeft at the hind part: back, wings,
and tail the fame, but deeper, and margined with a paler colour:
the quills, bread, and belly, white.
The female is fmaller than the male. The head, neck, and
bread are fulvous; paler on the upper part: the back, wings,
and tail, dull brown, with pale edges : belly white: in other
things agrees with the male, but the knob over the bill is
fmaller.
Such are the defcriptions of Briffon, fuppofing the above
birds to be didinci; j but later obfervations inform us, that
they all belong to one fpecies, the charafteridic marks of which
are the knob over the bill, and the loofe Ikin under the chin.
We are inclined alfo to think, that the bird often varies, with
the bill, knob, and legs, black; as the major part which have
come under our infpeftion have been of that colour.
The fird-defcribed is faid to come from the coad of Guinea;
the lad, to inhabit the Ruffian dominions ; and we are well af-
fured, that the fpecies is found wild about the Lake Baikal, in
the ead of Sibiria, and in Kamtfchatka *. They are alfo kept
tame in mod parts of the Ruffian empire -f. Thefe birds like-
wife inhabit China, and are common at the Cafe of Good Hofe J :
our lad voyagers met alfo with this, or one very like it, at
Owhyhee §.
* Arc:. Zool. f Dec. Ruff. i. p. 466.— Frequent at Aftrachan.
t This is no doubt the fpecies mentioned by Kolben, called Crop-Gooff ; who
fays, that the failors make tobacco-pouches, and purffs, of the membrane which
hangs beneath the throat, as it is fufficiently tough for fuch purpofes, and will
hold two pounds of tobacco.—Hiß. Cap. ii. p. 139.
§ A Goofe, like the China Goofe, at Karacakooah Bay, in Ovthyhee, quite
tame, called there Na-na,— Ellis’s Harr. ii. p. 143.
In
In England they are fufficiently common, and freely mix with
the common Goofe, the breeds uniting as freely, and continuing to
produce as certainly, as if no fuch mixture had taken place: they
are a much more noify race than the common tame Geefe, taking
alarm at the lead noife s and even without didurbance will emit
their harlh and difagreeable fcream the whole day through. They
walk very ereft, with the neck much elevated, and as they bear
a middle line between that of the Swan and Goofe, they have not
improperly been called Swan-Goofe.
Anfer melanotos, Zool. Ind, p. 21. t. 11.
L’Oie bronzé, Buf. Oif. ix. p. 77.
Oie de la Côte de Coromandel, PL Enh 937.
Black-backed Goofe, Ind. Zool. p. 12. pi. 1 x .
i s
BLACK-BACKED
G.
C I Z E of a Goofe, but of a more flender make : length two
^ feet nine inches. Bill pale, large, curved downwards at the
point; in the middle, over the nodrils, rather more forward,
a large rounded flelhy excrefcence, or knob, the fame colour as
the bill: the head, and half the neck, white, full of black dots,
or fhort dreaks; the feathers of thofe parts as it were ruffled
or reflefted; the red of the neck, and under parts, are white,
tinged with grey on the lides: the back, wings, and tail, black,
bronzed with green, and inclining to blue towards the tail: legs
dulky.
This fpecies is very common in the idand of Ceylon, and alfo
inhabits the coad of Coromandel. Buffon fuppofes this may prove
the Goofe, called Raffangue, having a red creft on the head, found
V ol. III. 3 M at
D e s c r i p t i o n .
Place.