1 68 OUR DOMESTIC FOWLS. 



supplies from foreign parts. Tlie feathers of 

 the body properly dressed and sorted are in 

 great demand, as all know, for beds, cushions, 

 pillows, etc. The quill feathers furnish us with 

 a simple instrument, efficient for good or for 

 evil, as he in whose hands it is may use it. 



Among the ancient Britons, the goose, 

 though probably kept in a tame state, was 

 not eaten, as it would appear, from supersti- 

 tious motives. On the occupation of this 

 island by the Romans, these Druidical observ- 

 ances by degrees vanished, and we may well 

 believe that when Britain became (with the 

 exception of its extreme north) a Roman 

 province, neither fowls, hares, nor geese 

 were exempted from death by the hands of 

 the obdurate cook, the " scevus coquus," as 

 Martial calls him. 



Of the history of the goose in the Saxon 

 era we can collect but little ; even then, as 

 it w^ould seem, it was doomed to bleed at 

 Michaelmas, and to the present day is Michael- 

 mas a fatal time for geese. A roast goose upon 

 the table on that day is a dish most undoubt- 

 edly " 7nore majorum.'" Nor is the plucking 

 of live geese (a custom perhaps of Roman 

 introduction) of less antiquity, as their quill 



