398 THE CANADA GOOSE. 



You shall see how this happened. Having purchased two pairs of 

 Bernacle geese, and four wigeons at Rotterdam, I got them put into 

 a hamper, and I took them with me on board the vessel which steams 

 weekly betwixt that town and the port of Hull. We had a charming 

 passage, short and smooth ; and on our arrival in the Humber, I 

 informed the visiting custom-house officer that I had four geese and 

 four wigeons in the hamper which stood before him. "They must 

 go to the custom-house," said he. " I know they must," said I, " if 

 they were dead geese for the purpose of commerce. But they are 

 living geese," continued I, " and of course exempt by law from such 

 an unpleasant errand." " No matter," said he, obstinately ; " to the 

 custom-house they must and shall go, alive or dead." And to the 

 custom-house they went, on a truck without springs, trotting all the 

 way over the rough pavement into the heart of the town of Hull. 

 On our arrival at the custom-house, another officer, in a harsh tone 

 of voice, asked me why I had brought living geese to that place. 

 " By peremptory orders," said I, "from the visiting custom-house 

 officer in the river." " He is a booby," said this officer. " Let these 

 geese be removed; they don't pay duty." My geese and wigeons 

 were instantly withdrawn from his haughty presence ; and they had 

 another jolting through the streets of Hull to the water-side, with 

 some fears, on my part, that they would not forget in a hurry their 

 being jumbled together so rudely in the performance of a useless 

 expedition. We steamed up the Humber, and reached Walton Hall 

 late that night. The Bernacle ganders had borne their journey well; 

 but it was otherwise with the two geese and three of the wigeons. 

 They appeared out of sorts, and died in the course of the following 

 week.* The two surviving ganders, being bereft of their connubial 

 comforters, seemed to take their misfortune sorely to heart for some 

 time, till at last they began to make advances for permission to enter 

 into the company of the Canadian geese. These good birds did not 

 hesitate to receive them ; and from that time to this the two very 

 distinct species of geese (the one being only half the size of the 

 other) have become one inseparable family. The two Bernacles, 

 being pinioned, cannot of course accompany the Canadians in their 



* Perhaps their death might have been accelerated by the act of pinioning 

 them, although it seemed to have had no bad effect on the ganders. 



