THE TOULOUSE GOOSE.
This bird is said to have been originally imported from the Mediterranean; and is known also by the names Mediterranean goose, and Pyrenean goose. It is chiefly remarkable for its vast size, in which respect it surpasses all others.
Its prevailing color is a slaty blue, marked with brown bars, and occasionally relieved with black; the head, neck, as far as the beginning of the breast, and the back of the neck, as far as the shoulders, of a dark-brown; the breast slaty-blue; the belly is white, in common with the under surface of the tail; the bill is orange-red, and the feet flesh-color.
In habit, the Toulouse goose resembles his congeners, but seems to possess a milder and more tractable disposition, which greatly conduces to the chance of his early fattening, and that, too, at a little cost. The curl of the plumage on the neck comes closer to the head than that on common geese, and the abdominal pouch, which, in other varieties, is an accompaniment of age, exists from the shell. The flesh is said to be tender and well-flavored.
Some pronounce this bird the unmixed and immediate descendant of the Gray-leg; while others assert that it is only the common domestic, enlarged by early hatching, very liberal feeding during youth, fine climate, and, perhaps, by age, and style them grenadier individuals of the domestic goose—nothing more.
THE WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE.
In its wild state, the White-fronted or Laughing goose is twenty-seven inches long, and found in great numbers in Europe and in the North American Fur countries, but rare along our coasts.
When domesticated, it belongs to the class of birds which are restrained from resuming their original wild habits more by the influence of local and personal attachment than from any love which they seem to have for the comforts of domestication; which may be trusted with their entire liberty, or nearly so, but require an eye to be kept on them from time to time, lest they stray away and assume an independent condition. The white-fronted goose well deserves the patronage of those who have even a small piece of grass.