boat, which communicates with the bank by means of a narrow board, he makes a signal call, and all the ducks rush simultaneously forward; the first which gains the boat is ordinarily rewarded with a handful of rice, but the last undergoes a smart chastisement; of this the birds from repetition are well aware, and hence, every one struggles to get before his neighbour, partly incited by hope, but more by fear. Of course, one must be the last, but it knows what awaits it.

In Persia, the duck and goose are seldom kept, nor are these birds in any request for the table; in fact, it would seem that they are seldom eaten.

Among the ancient Egyptians, ducks were in high request, and representations of these birds were favourite subjects for their paintings. We learn from Herodotus that salted ducks were eaten without any other cooking, and the mode of pickling them is seen in pictures from Thebes; in one of these, two men are seen carrying the ducks on their shoulders, and a little further, a man putting them into earthern vessels, formed like Roman amphoræ, probably containing salt or pickle. In the extreme left of the picture are two men

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seated, one of whom seems as if he were rubbing something into a duck; one hand is closed, as it would be if it were full of salt, and with the other he is raising one of the wings apparently for the purpose of rubbing in the salt. The other figure appears to be plucking the feathers off the neck of a duck, but Roselini describes him as sprinkling a handful of salt upon it." In the British Museum, among the provisions found in a tomb in Egypt, are two birds, of course very dry and shrivelled, which appear to us to be young ducks, or teal, or at least small water-fowl of some species.

Whether ducks, geese, or other waterfowl were used as food by the ancient Hebrews, does not appear from any passage in the Scriptures. They do not seem to have been interdicted, and as the Hebrews must have witnessed the extensive consumption of these birds while sojourning in Egypt, especially ducks and geese, they may, perhaps, have adopted their use; nevertheless, we suspect that, influenced by their feelings of aversion with respect to Egyptian rites and ceremonies, the Hebrews may have regarded the duck and goose with the same disgust as they did the dog, which was a favourite in Egypt.

In modern Egypt and Syria, though wild water-fowl are abundant, still neither tame ducks nor geese are often to be seen, and the same observation applies to other parts of western Asia. The reason is that the Moslems very rarely eat these birds, whether tame or wild, while on the contrary the common fowl is reared in vast abundance.

We must not forget that in Europe, besides the ordinary tame duck, we have in our farm yards a very distinct species, namely, the musk, or as it is often erroneously called the Muscovy duck,* (Anas moschata.) It is the Canard musqué of Buffon, and deserves the title from the strong scent of musk which it exhales.

This species will inter-breed with the common duck, but we believe the progeny are not fertile. The musk duck greatly exceeds the ordinary kind in size, and, moreover, differs in the colours and character of the plumage, in general contour, and the form of the head. The general colour is glossy blue-black, varied more or less with white; the head is crested, and a space of naked

Ray says, "Muscovy duck, not because it comes from Muscovy, but because it exhales a somewhat powerful odour of musk;" but surely the word might be better chosen,

scarlet skin, more or less clouded with violet, surrounds the eye, continued from scarlet caruncles on the base of the beak; the top of the head is crested; the feathers of the body are larger, more lax, softer, and less closely compacted together than in the common duck, and seem to indicate less aquatic habits. The male far surpasses the female in size; there are no curled feathers in his tail.

In habits, the musk-duck presents nothing very different from the other species, excepting that the male is fierce and quarrelsome; when enraged, its eyes and demeanour betray its violent emotions, it depresses its head, and utters hoarse notes in a deep tone. The flesh of this species, and also of the mixed breed, is said to be very good, but we have never tasted it.

With respect to the wild origin of the musk duck little seems to be definitely known, nor is it ascertained at what precise period it came into Europe. Most accounts refer to South America as its native country. Ray, in whose time it was known as a domestic bird in England, terms it Anas sylvestris Braziliensis, the wood duck of Brazil. Linnæus, in his Fauna Suecica, says, "It is reared on the farms of

the gentry, but it is not an indigenous bird in Sweden.' Marcgrave states the musk duck to be a native of Brazil and Guiana, and terms it Anas sylvestris, magnitudine anseris—a wood-duck of the size of a goose.

Buffon says that these birds were introduced into France in the time of Belon, about 1540, who termed them Canes de Guinée.

THE DOMESTIC GOOSE.-The goose, like the duck, has been domesticated from time immemorial; but its wild origin appears to be clearly ascertained. We may commence the history of this species by observing, that four European species of wild goose, closely allied to each other, are known to naturalists; namely, the white-fronted goose,* (Anser erythropus-Fleming; 4. albifrons-Bechst. ;) the bean goose, (Anser ferus — Flem.; A. segetum-Steph. ;) the pink-foot goose, (Anser phoenicopus―Bartlett, in Proc. (Zool. Soc. 1839, p. 2;) and the grey-lag wild goose, (Anser palustris - Flem.; Anser cinereus Meyer.) Of these, the first three are only periodical visitants to our island, and the temperate parts of Europe, and western Asia, arriving on the approach of winter, and retiring

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*This species is also a native of North America.