GOOSE. 



C55 



detached from the rest. After they have rested for two 

 or three hours, this one utters the same signal cry 

 which is given out whenever a single cry is heard as 

 they fly along, and as soon as this is given they are 

 all on the wing, and in the order of their aerial inarch. 

 Their flight is conducted with great regularity, for 

 they always proceed either in a line a-breast, or in 

 two lines, joining in an angle at the middle. They 

 take the lead in this order by turns generally, the 

 foremost falling back in the rear, when tired with 

 cleaving the air, and the next in succession occupying 

 its place. They are seldom within reach of a fowling- 

 piece in these lofty flights ; and even when they move 

 in a lower track, they file so equally, that one dis- 

 charge rarely kills more than a single bird. Their prin- 

 cipal food consists of aquatic vegetables, and most 

 sorts of grain. They breed in heaths, or in plains 

 and marshes, as formerly in the fenny districts of 

 England, and in various other Countries, the female 

 nestling on tufts of cut rushes, or dry herbage, and 

 usually laying from five to nine eggs, and very rarely 

 so many as twelve or fourteen. They are of a dirty 

 greenish colour, and are hatched in about four weeks. 

 The young ones are taken in considerable numbers 

 some years, and are then very easily tamed. The 

 old birds, however, are extremely shy, and possessing 

 the senses of hearing and vision in a pre-eminent 

 degree, frequently contrive to elude the approaches of 

 their pursuers. They often during the day take up 

 their abode in the fields of young corn, which they 

 damage to a very considerable extent ; but they remain 

 there during the day only, arid when night sets in, 

 they invariably take to the water, where they are 

 secure from the invasion of the fox, an animal which 

 has long been proverbial as the destroyer of geese ; 

 and though the usual time for preying to the fox is 

 the night or in the morning, he is so fond of geese as 

 that he will sometimes steal upon them even at 

 mid-day. 



Many writers on the economy of these animals 

 have stated that the species, in a wild state, is generally 

 diffused over the world ; but it is probable that in 

 this there is a good deal of exaggeration ; and it is 

 not unlikely that even in the northern hemisphere 

 this has been confounded with others, in like manner 

 as those geese which are subject to differences at dif- 

 ferent ages and in different individuals have un- 

 naturally been multiplied into different species. 



This, which, as we have said, is understood to be 

 the parent stock of most of our domestic varieties, 

 has been so long in a state of domestication, that it 

 reaches beyond the earliest records of history ; and 

 though, by some means or other, the goose has got 

 credit for being emblematical of folly, there are some 

 instances recorded of singular services performed by 

 it to the human race. Geese are very watchful birds ; 

 and when any thing strange appears, they set up a 

 loud gabbling. It is in this way that the geese of the 

 Rinnan capitol are recorded as having saved Rome 

 from being captured by the Gauls, and thus they 

 were long respected by that very superstitious people. 



When domesticated, highly fed, and left perfectly 

 at case, geese grow to much larger size than they 

 ever attain in a state of nature. Various arts, and 

 often very cruel ones, have been, and are still, re- 

 sorted to, for the purpose of fattening them for the 

 table, and especially for enlarging their livers, which, 

 when thus unnaturally enlarged, and consequently 

 diseased, are much prized by a peculiar class of epi- 



cures, although it is impossible that any part of 

 animals which are treated in this manner can be 

 wholesome. One mode of managing them is to nail 

 the webs of their feet to a board on the floor near a 

 strong fire, to sew up the vent, and forcibly to cram 

 them with rich food, until they are at the point of 

 death by suffocation ; by this means the liver grows 

 to an enormous size, and the goose itself increases in 

 weight to twenty pounds and upwards. The fat of 

 geese principally accumulates externally ; and, gene- 

 rally speaking, it is difficult of digestion, and there- 

 fore unwholesome. In upper Languedoc, towards 

 the Cevennes mountains, in France, there is said to 

 be a breed which accumulates a great lump of fat on 

 the lower part of the belly, which touches the ground 

 when they walk. In other places there have been 

 breeds that have showed considerable departures 

 from the type of the wild goose, not only in colour, 

 but in size and other particulars, which are under- 

 stood to be less subject to those casual- changes. It 

 is mentioned that, a good many years ago, one family 

 near Highworth, in the county of Wilts, were in 

 possession of a breed of geese, which they nursed and 

 fattened in such a manner, that they attained to a very 

 extraordinary, and almost incredible size, insomuch 

 that some of them would weigh from twenty even to 

 thirty pounds. The owners could scarcely be in- 

 duced, on any consideration, to part with an egg of 

 this breed ; and they sold the yearly produce of the 

 flock to a few opulent families in the neighbourhood, 

 at the rate of a shilling the pound. As an important 

 department of the poultry establishment, the goose, 

 we need hardly observe, is cultivated in almost every 

 civilised quarter of the world, and, when under pro- 

 per management, forms a profitable article of the 

 farmers' produce, its quills, down, flesh, and even dung, 

 being all turned to account. In this island these 

 birds are nowhere kept in greater quantities than in 

 the fens of Lincolnshire, several persons there having 

 as many as a thousand breeders. They are stripped 

 once a year for their quills, and no fewer than five 

 times for the feathers. The first plucking for both 

 commences about Lady-day, and the other four are 

 between that and Michaelmas. It is alleged that, in 

 general, the birds do not materially suffer from these 

 operations, except cold weather happens to set in, 

 when numbers of them die. The old ones submit 

 quietly to be plucked, but the young ones arc very 

 noisy and unruly. These geese breed, in general, 

 only once a year, but if well kept, sometimes twice. 

 Each has a "space allotted to it, in rows of wicker 

 pens, placed one above another, during their sitting, 

 and the gozzard (goosekerd) who drives them to water 

 twice a day, and brings them back to their habitations, 

 is said to place every bird in its own nest The num- 

 bers of geese that are driven from the distant coun- 

 ties to London for sale are scarcely credible ; for a 

 single drove frequently consists of two or three thou- 

 sand. In ancient times they appear to have been 

 conducted much in the same manner from the interior 

 of Gaul to Rome. The drivers are provided with 

 long sticks, having a piece of red rag fastened to the 

 end of them as a lash, and a hook is fastened at the 

 other. With the former, of which the geese seem 

 much afraid, they are excited forward, and with the 

 latter, such as attempt to stray are caught by the 

 neck and kept in order. Such as are lame are placed 

 in a hospital cart, which usually follows each large 

 drove. Their progress is at the rate of about eight 



