THE "GREY" GEESE 163 



well she sallies forth with her young streaming after her. The 

 gander brings up the rear. If he is the least suspicious he sounds 

 a note of alarm ; if his warnings are well founded, and danger 

 imminent, he takes flight immediately, leaving his family to fend for 

 themselves. 



According to Naumann, the greylag occasionally gets an attack of 

 " nerves," and both parents will make off with their young to some small 

 sheet of water promising, or seeming to promise, a greater security 

 against surprise by enemies. Having attained their goal, they will 

 then immediately return to the place whence they started, and they 

 will persist in this course with extraordinary obstinacy. Such erratic 

 wanderings may entail a march of several hours across fields, through 

 woods, and even through settlements, so that in their aimless 

 meanderings the young fall victims to foes of all sorts, or perish from 

 the hardships of the journey. Having regard to the fact that 

 swallows will abandon their young in obedience to the migratory 

 instinct, it may be that these strange wanderings are made, not in 

 the interests of the young, but of the parents, who seek a secure 

 retreat for that perilous period, the annual moult, when, for a time, 

 they will be flightless. 



More than a hundred years ago, perhaps a hundred and fifty 

 would be nearer the mark, the greylag-goose bred in numbers in 

 our English fens, where the young were annually taken and kept in 

 a more or less reclaimed condition with vast flocks of tame geese, 

 which, it may be remarked, are a domesticated race of this species. 

 Darwin, 1 in commenting on this fact, remarks that though the 

 reclamation of the greylag must date back to very remote times, yet 

 scarcely any animal which has been tamed for so long a period has 

 varied so little, for, save in the case of the white race, these domesti- 

 cated birds differ but slightly from the wild stock. 



That the greylag and the whitefronted-goose are near allies 

 there can be no doubt, indeed the latter would seem positively to 



1 Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. i. p. 287. 



