80 STOEIES ABOUT BIRDS. 



down, for fear lier head will lilt the beam. I 

 cannot believe that is true of the family gene- 

 rally, though, for aught that I kno^Y, it may 

 have been true of one individual. After all, I 

 feel inclined to take the goose's part. Some 

 of the anecdotes which I am going to tell you, 

 seem to afford pretty good evidence that the 

 goose family are smarter than many people 

 dream of. 



Mr. Piatt, a respectable farmer on Long 

 Island, being out shooting in one of the bays, 

 which, in that part of the country, abound 

 with water-fowl, wounded a wild goose. Be- 

 ing wing-tipped, and unable to fly, he canght 

 it, and brought it home alive. It proved to be 

 a female ; and, turning it into his yard, with a 

 flock of tame geese, it soon became qnite tame 

 and familiar, and in a little time its wounded 

 wing entirely healed. In the following spring, 

 when the wild geese emigrated to the north- 

 ward, a flock passed over Mr. Piatt's barn-yard ; 

 and, just at that moment, their leader happen- 

 ing to sound his bugle note, onr goose, remem- 

 bering the well-known sound, spread its wings, 

 mounted into the air, joined the travelers, and 

 soon disappeared. In the succeeding antumn, 

 the wild geese, as was usual, returned from the 

 northward in great numbers, to pass the winter 



