industries include the manufacture of alum, sugar, ropes, and agricultural instruments, and iron—founding. Shipbuilding is also carried on, and there is a large dry dock, and a patent slip for repairing vessels. The population in 1871
was 7680.GOOSANDER. See Merganser.
GOOSE (Anglo-Saxon, 063), the general English name for a considerable number of birds, belonging to the Family Anatitlte of modern ornithologists, which are mostly larger than Ducks and less than Swans. Technically the word Goose is reserved for the female, the male being called Gander (Anglo-Saxon, Gandra).
The most important species of Goose, and the type of the genus Anser, is undoubtedly that which is the origin of our well—known domestic race, the A-nser ferns or A. cinereas of most naturalists, commonly called in English the Grey or lrcy Lag[1] Goose, a bird of exceedingly wide range in the Old World, apparently breeding where suitable localities are to be found in most European countries from Lapland to Spain and Bulgaria. Eastwards it extends to China, but does not seem to be known in Japan. It is the only species indigenous to the British Islands, and in former days bred abundantly in the English Fen-country, where the young were caught in large numbers and kept in a more or less reclaimed condition with the vast flocks of tame—bred Geese that at one time formed so valuable a property to the dwellers in and around the Fens. It is impossible to determine when the wild Grey Lag Goose ceased from breeding in England, but it certainly did so towards the end of the last century, for Daniell mentions (Rural Sports, iii. p. his having obtained two broods in one season. In Scotland this Goose continues to breed sparingly in several parts of the Highlands and in certain of the Hebrides, the nests being generally placed in long heather, and the eggs seldom exceeding five or six in number. It is most likely the birds reared here that are from time to time obtained in England, for at the present day the Grey Lag Goose, though once so numerous, is, and for many years has been, the rarest species of those that habitually resort to the British Islands. The domestication of this species, as Mr Darwin remarks (Animals and Plants under Domesticatio-n, i. p. 287), is doubtless of very ancient date, and yet scarcely any other animal that has been tamed for so long a period, and bred so largely in captivity, has varied so little. It has increased greatly in size and fecundity, but almost the only change in plumage is that tame Geese lose the browner and darker tints of the wild bird, and are invariably more or less marked with white—being often indeed wholly of that colour.[2] The most generally recognized breeds of domestic Geese are those to which the distinctive names of Emden and Toulouse are applied; but a singular breed, said to have come from Sebastopol, was introduced into \Vestern Europe about the year 1856. In this the scapulars are elongated, curled, and spirally twisted, having their shaft transparent, and so thin that it often splits into fine fila- ments, which, remaining free for an inch or more, often coalesce again.3
The other British species of typical Geese are the Bean-‘ Goose (A.segetum), the Pink-footed (A. brachyrhyncfius), and the White-fronted (A. albzfrons). On the continent of Europe, but not yet recognized as occurring in Britain, is a small form of the last (A. erythropus) which is known to breed in Lapland. All these, for the sake of discrimination, may be divided into two groups—(1) those having the “nail” at the tip of the bill white, or of a very pale flesh colour, and those in which this “nail” is black. To the former belong the Grey Lag Goose, as well as A. albi- frons and A. erythropas, and to the latter the other two. A. albzfrons and A. erytlzmpus, which hardly differ but in size,—the last being not much bigger than a Mallard (Anas bosclzas),—may be readily distinguished from the Grey Lag Goose by their bright orange bill and legs, and their nlouse- coloured upper wing-coverts, to say nothing of their very conspicuous white face and the broad black bars which cross the belly, though the two last characters are occasion- ally observable to some extent in the Grey Lag Goose, which has the bill and legs flesh—coloured, and the upper wing-coverts of a bluish—grey. Of the second group, with the black “ nail,” A. segetam has the bill long, black at the base and orange in the middle; the feet are also orange, and the upper wing-coverts mouse-coloured, as in A. allzfrons and A. erythropas, while A. brachyrlzync/zus has the bill short, bright pink in the middle, and the feet also pink, the upper wing—coverts being nearly of the same bluish—grey as in the Grey Lag Goose. Eastern Asia possesses in A. grandz's a third species of this group, which chiefly differs from A. segetam in its larger size. In North America there is only one species of typical Goose, and that belongs to the white-“ nailed” group. It very nearly resembles A. albi- frons, but is larger, and has been described as distinct under the name of A. gambelz'. Central Asia and India possess in the Bar—headed Goose (A. inclicas) a bird easily distin- guished from any of the foregoing by the character implied by its English name; but it is certainly somewhat abnormal, and, indeed, under the name of Eulabia, has been separated from the genus Anser, which has no other member indigen- ous to the Indian Region, nor any at all to the Ethiopian, Australian, or N eotropical Regions.
of Anserine forms. Beside others, presently to be men- tioned, its northern portions are the home of all the Species of Snow-Geese belonging to the genus Chen. It is true that two of these are reported as having appeared, and that not unfrequently, in Europe and Asia; but they possibly have been but stragglers from America. The first of these is 0. hyperboreas, the Snow-Goose proper, a bird of large size, and when adult of a pure white, except the primaries, which are black. This has long been deemed a visitor to the Old \Vorld, and sometimes in considerable numbers, but
the later discovery of a smaller form, C. albatas, scarcely
- ↑ The meaning and derivation of this word Lag had long been a. puzzle until Prof. Skeat suggested (Ibis, 1870, p. 301) that it signified late, last, or slow, as in laggard, a loiterer, layman, the last man, Ila/teeth, the posterior molar or “wisdom” teeth (as the last to appear), and [ageloc/r, a clock that is behind time. Thus the Grey Lag Goose is the Grey Goose which in England when the name was given was not migratory but lagged behind the other wild species at the season when they betook themselves to their northern breeding- qua-rters. In connexion with this word, however, must be noticed the CllI‘lOllS fact mentioned by the late Mr Rowley (0m. JIz'sceIl., iii. p. 213), that to this day the flocks of tame Geese in Lincolnshire are urged on by their drivers with the cry of “ Lag’em, Lag’em.”
- ↑ From the times of the Romans white Geese have been held in great-estlmation, and hence, doubtless, they have been preferred as breeding stock, but the practice of plucking Geese alive, continued for so many centuries, has not improbany also helped to perpetuate this varntion, for it is well known to many bird-keepers that a white feather is often produced in place of one of the natural colour that has been pulled out.
