486 



SCIENCES AND SOCIAL ARTS. 



[PART IV. 



achieving political renown. It must be observed, too, 

 that the birds which rendered that memorable service, 

 were the ordinary white geese of Europe \ and not the 

 red geese of the Nile (the xyvofawTrrfe of Herodotus), 

 which, ages before, had been enrolled amongst the ani- 

 mals held sacred in Egypt, and which formed the em- 

 blem of Seb, the father of Osiris. 2 HORAPOLLO, endea- 

 vouring to account for this predilection of the Egyptians 

 (who employed the goose hieroglyphically to denote a 

 son), ascribes it to their appreciation of the love evinced 

 by it for its offspring, in exposing itself to divert the at- 

 tention of the fowler from its young. 3 This opinion was 

 shared by the Greeks and the Eomans. Aristotle praises 

 its sagacity ; ./Elian dilates on the courage and cunning 

 of the " vulpanser," and its singular attachment to man 4 ; 

 and Ovid ranks the goose as superior to the dog in the 

 scale of intelligence, 



" Solicit! canes canibusve sagacior anser." 



OVID, Met. xi. 399. 



The feeling appears to have spread westward at an 

 early period; the ancient Britons, according to Cassar, 

 held it impious to eat the flesh of the goose 5 , and the 

 followers of the first crusade which issued from 



1 This appears from a line of Lu- 

 cretius : 



" Romulidarum arcis servator candidus anser." 

 De Rer. Nat.\.iv. 637. 



2 SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S 

 Manners and Customs, fyc., 2nd Ser. 

 pi. 31, fig. 2, vol. i. p. 312 j vol. ii. 

 p. 227. Mr. Birch of the British 

 Museum informs me that throughout 

 the ritual or hermetic books of the 

 ancient Egyptians a mystical notion 

 is attached to the goo.se as one of the 

 creatures into which the dead had to 

 undergo a transmigration. That it 

 was actually worshipped is attested 

 by a sepulchral tablet of the 26th 

 dynasty, about 700 B.C., in which it 

 is figured^ standing on a small chapel 

 over which are the hieroglyphic 

 words, " The good goose greatly be- 

 loved; " and on the lower part of the 



tablet the dedicator makes an offer- 

 ing of fire and water to " Amman and 

 the Goose." Revue ArcJieco.. vol. ii. 

 pi. 27. 



3 HORAPOLLO, HieroglypJiica, lib. 

 i. 23. 



4 ^ELIAN, Nat. Hist., lib. v. c. 29, 

 30, 50. ./Elian says that the Romans, 

 in recognition of the superior vigi- 

 lance of the goose on the occasion of 

 the assault on the Capitol, instituted 

 a procession in the Forum in honour 

 of the goose, whose watchfulness was 

 incorruptible ; but held an annual de- 

 nunciation of the inferior fidelity of 

 the dogs, which allowed themselves 

 to be silenced by meat flung to them 

 by the Gauls. Nat. Hist. lib. xii. 

 ch. xxxiii. 



5 t( Anserem gustare fas non pu- 

 tant." (LESAR, Bell. Gall, lib. v. 

 ch. xii. 



