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.