8 TALKS ABOUT BIRDS 



tamed for a long time, for such varieties are 

 always rare at first. The Egyptians seem to 

 have been the people who first tamed geese, 

 for they kept a great many, and there is a 

 very ancient picture in the British Museum 

 showing a flock of tame geese, some grey, some 

 grey-and- white, and some all white, just as 

 you may see them on any common to-day. 

 So I expect the Greeks got their white geese 

 from Egypt, and they and the Romans carried 

 these tame birds about as they did the fowls, 

 until they were spread about everywhere. 

 Caesar says the Britons kept the geese, as they 

 did the fowls, for pleasure, for they did not 

 think it right to eat either of them. Very 

 likely they found the geese of some use for 

 sentinels, as you will remember the Romans 

 did when the Gauls nearly took the Capitol, 

 and the sacred geese kept there gave the alarm. 

 The goose looks very stupid, but it is really the 

 cleverest of all our tame birds, and it will 

 give warning of a stranger even better than 

 a dog ; and this is a great consideration to 

 people living in a state of constant war, as 

 savages so often are. There is a peculiar sort 

 of wild goose in Hawaii, and in the old days 



