No. 129.] 341 



an expert goosemaster would proceed in choosing his breeding 

 geese. The parallel instruction in Columella is at lib. VIII. , 

 chap. XIV., where we find just enough of amplification and alter- 

 ation of phrase to deprive the latter scribe of all chance of the 

 beautiful supposition that he had made a quotation and forgot to 

 acknowledge it. But in these passages we have double classical 

 authority for the two important facts — that the domestic goose 

 will not sit on any eggs except those she herself has laid, and 

 that the gosling must be cautiously tui-ned out to pasture, lest 

 he break his neck by tugging indiscreetly at the tough herbage. 

 A fact of a different class to be gathered from them is, that geese, 

 two thousand years back, were exactly what they are hodie 

 (to-day.) Some parti-colored, supposed to be mitigated from the 

 wild sort, and others white, which t/mi, as 7ww, were held in 

 highest esteem as breeders. 



As to the origin of our various breeds of domestic fowls, for 

 they are no longer found wild, any more than the camel is. 

 With the pedigree of domestic turkeys and Guinea fowl we are 

 well acquainted. Most, though not all, naturalists agree that 

 the domestic goose is the direct progeny of the grey lag ; and 

 farm-yard ducks, according to the nearly universal creed, are 

 nothing but tame mallards. Walter B. Dickson, in his Poultry 

 book of 1838, patronizes Sonnerat's cocks^and hens as the Adam 

 and Eve of all fowls. " This species," he says, " which is three 

 feet four inches in length, inhabits the great forests of India, 

 continue to reproduce there, and is clearly distinct from the 

 domestic races reared by the Hindoos (that is quite true,) as 

 these resemble, in all respects, the other tame breeds in every 

 quarter of the globe." Mr. Sonnerat, however, thought very 

 differently. 



There is no evidence of a greater number of kinds of domesti- 

 cated animals now in the world than have been from the earliest 

 period of history. 



It is taken for granted that every domesticated bird and ani- 

 mal must have passed through the wild state — have been primi- 

 tively shy, intractable, and unattachable, and been made docile. 



