4S6 



SCIEXCES AXD SOCIAL ARTS. 



[Part IV. 



achieving political renown. It must be observed, too, 

 that the birds which rendered that memorable service, 

 were the ordinary white geese of Europe \ and not the 

 red goose of the Nile (the p^r^vaXfoVry^ of Herodotus), 

 which, ages before, had been enrolled amongst the ani- 

 mals held sacred in Egypt, and which formed the em- 

 blem of Seb, the father of Osiris.^ Hoeapollo, endea- 

 vouring to account for this predilection of the Egyptians 

 (who employed the goose hieroglyphically to denote a 

 son), ascribes it to their appreciation of the love evinced 

 by it for its offspring, in exposing itself to divert the at- 

 tention of the fowler from its young.^ This opinion was 

 shared by the Greeks and the Eomans. Aristotle praises 

 its sagacity; ^Ehan dilates on tlie courage and cunning 

 of the " vulpanser," and its singular attachment to man ^ ; 

 and Ovid ranks the goose as superior to the dog in the 

 scale of intelligence, — 



^^Soliciti canes canibusve sagacior anser." 



Ovid, 3Iet. xi. .399. 



The feeling appears to have spread westward at an 

 early period ; the ancient Britons, according to Caesar, 

 held it impious to eat the flesh of tlie goose ^, and the 

 followers of the first crusade wliicli issued from 



^ This appears from a line of Lu- 

 cretius : 



" Komuliilarum arcis servator cani'dtt/t anser." 

 De Rer. Nat. l.iv. 687. 



^ SrR Gardner Wilkinson's 

 Manners and Customs, 8,-c., 2nd Ser. 

 pi. 31, fig. 2, vol. i. p. 312 ; vol. ii. 

 p. 227. Uv. Bircli of the British 

 Museum informs me that tliroughout 

 the ritual or liermetic books of the 

 ancient Eg-\'ptian3 a mystical notion 

 is attached to the goose as one of the 

 creatures into which the dead had to 

 imdergo a transmigTatiou. That it 

 was actually worshipped is attested 

 by a sepulchral tablet of the 26t]i 

 djTiasty, about 700 B.C., in which it 

 is figured standing on a small chapel 

 over which are the hieroglrphic 

 words, " Tlie r/ood goose (jreathj be- 

 loved; " and on the lower part of the 



tablet the dedicator makes an offer- 

 ing of fire and water to " Amnion and 

 the Goose.'''' — JRevue Archceo., vol. ii. 

 pi. 27. 



^ HoRAPOLLo, Ilieroqh/pldca, lib. 

 i. 23. 



* yELiAN, Nat. H!st., lib. v. c. 29, 

 30, 50. ^lian says that tlie liomans 

 in recognition of the superior vigi- 

 lance of the goose on the occasion of 

 the assaidt on the Capitol, instituted 

 a procession in the Forum in honour 

 of the goose, whose watchfidness was 

 incorruptible ; but held an annual de- 

 mmciation of the inferior fidelity of 

 the dogs, wliich allowed themselves 

 to be silenced by meat flung to them 

 by the Gauls. — Nat. Hist. lib. xii. 

 ch. xxxiii. 



^ " Anserem gustare fas non pu- 

 tant." — CiisAR, Bell GuU., lib. v. 

 ch. xii. 



