POULTRY 9 



when the natives there were savages, they 

 used to keep this bird specially to give warn- 

 ing against a surprise attack. 



As Homer mentions tame geese and says 

 nothing about fowls, we must suppose that he 

 did not know anything about cocks and hens, 

 and the Egyptians seem not to have done so, 

 as there are no pictures of them in their 

 sacred picture-writing or " hieroglyphics." It 

 is true that one often comes across a little bird 

 which is very like a young chicken among 

 these signs, but it is just as much like a young 

 quail or a young moorhen. As they certainly 

 did have tame geese, as we have seen, it would 

 seem that the goose was the first of poultry 

 birds, and there is none so easy to tame and 

 keep, for a goose is so sensible that it soon 

 knows when it is well off. Mr. Hume, in his 

 book on game-birds, says that a wild grey 

 goose, only a short time after it has been 

 captured, by its wing being damaged by a shot, 

 will follow you about like a dog ; and a goose 

 lives on grass and needs no shelter, so it gives 

 no trouble and is in every way a likely bird to 

 be tamed early. But although the wild grey 



goose is found in India in the winter, that is 



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