GEESE. 55 



tenants with the inhabitants. Three rows of coarse 

 wicker pens, placed one above another, are found in 

 every apartment, even the bed-chamber. Each bird 

 has its separate lodge, of which it keeps possession. 

 A gozzard or gooseherd attends the flock. 



" The geese are usually plucked five times a year, 

 though some pluck them only three times and others 

 four ; commencing at Lady-day, again at Midsum- 

 mer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and Martinmas. Gos- 

 lings are not spared ; early plucking, they say, tending 

 to encrease the succeeding feathers. The common 

 mode of plucking live geese is considered barbarous ; 

 but it has prevailed perhaps ever since feather-beds 

 came into general use. In answer to the charge of 

 cruelty preferred against the ' fen slodgers,' the 

 writer deems it an act of justice to state that the 

 owners are careful not to pull until the feathers are 

 ripe, that is, not until they are just ready to fall ; 

 because if forced from the skin before, which is known 

 by the appearance of blood at the roots, they are of 

 inferior value ; those plucked after the geese are 

 dead, are affirmed to be of still less worth. The 

 larger feathers and quills are pulled twice a year 

 only. That the reader may form some idea of the 

 extent to which goose breeding and feeding is car- 

 ried in the fens, instances are not infrequent, in some 

 establishments, where five coombs of corn are daily 

 consumed by the brood geese only." 



D 4 



