GOOSE, the common name for birds forming the sub-family Anserinae of the Anatidae. Technically "goose" is the female, the male being "gander." Geese differ from ducks in that the sexes are alike and that the male assists the female in the duties of rear ing the young. At the close of the breeding season they moult their wing quills and may then be easily approached. When in company, geese usually fly in a V-shaped formation.
The type of the sub-family is the grey-lag goose (Anser anser) , from which the domestic goose has been derived (see POULTRY). It breeds in suitable localities from Lapland to Spain, and from Scotland to China. The nest is placed in heather or grass and five or six eggs form a clutch. The genus Anser constitutes the "grey" geese, and includes, besides the grey-lag, the bean-goose (A. fabalis), the pink-footed goose (A. brachyrhynchus) and the white-fronted goose (A. albifrons), all breeding in the northern part of the Old World and migrating south in winter. American members of the genus are A. gambeli and, in its northern portions, the snow-geese, of which the commonest is A. hyperboreus, the snow goose proper, white with black primaries, and A. canagica, the emperor goose of the Aleutian Islands. South America pos sesses the genus Chloephaga, which includes the kelpgoose, C. antarctica, and the upland goose, C. magellanica.
The "black" geese include the barnacle-goose (Branta leucop sis), breeding in Spitsbergen, north-east Greenland and north-west Siberia, supposed of old to be produced from barnacles (Le padidae), and the brent-goose, B. bernicla, with a circumpolar breeding range. To this group also belongs the well-known Canada goose (B. canadensis) of America. Other species occur in North America, Asia and the Hawaiian archipelago.
The largest living goose is the Chinese goose, Cygnopsis cygnoides, the origin of the eastern domestic races. Cnemiorius calcitrans is a fossil goose from New Zealand, remarkable for its extraordinary patella, and its loss of flight. The Egyptian and Orinoco geese (Chenalopex) are of doubtful affinities and possess an enlargement of the junction of the bronchial tubes and trachea —a characteristic of the ducks (Anatinae).