558 The Illustrated Book of Poultry, 



plumage throughout, with dark flesh-coloured bill and deep orange-coloured legs and feet ; the 

 eyes being bright blue. In carriage they should be very tall and erect, with fine square bodies, 

 which in fat specimens touch the ground. They come to enormous size, as may be judged from 

 the weights of my prize birds at the Birmingham Show of 1872. They were weighed a few days 

 before the shov/ with the following results : the gander (three years old) weighed just thirty-two and 

 a half pounds, and his mate (a goose of the same age) pulled down very nearly twenty-six pounds . 

 the goslings weighed twenty-seven and a half pounds and twenty-four pounds. Weight is naturally 

 lost when they are sent a journey, owing to excitement and change of diet ; and the more a bird is 

 fattened the more likely it is to lose weight ; hence the weights recorded at Birmingham and other 

 shows are often excelled by the same specimens when at home. A good bird of any breed 

 weighing twenty pounds is considered very fine, and I may observe that for breeding purposes such 

 weight is more than sufficient to ensure good stock. 



" It is seldom that a goose lays till after a year old ; and I mention this because beginners are 

 sometimes needlessly alarmed about the fecundity of their stock, from having purchased goslings 

 and found no produce from them the first year. The eggs of the Embden Geese are white in 

 colour, very large, and rough in the shell, which is extremely thick. It is customary here to set the 

 eggs under large Cochin or Dorking hens, which can well cover and take care of three or four of 

 them ; and it is very rarely regular goose breeders allow the geese themselves to sit. A turkey- 

 hen also makes a capital mother. The eggs should be well and regularly sprinkled with lukewarm 

 water, to prevent the shell becoming so hard as to check the egress of the young. Geese sometimes 

 lay two sittings of eggs in a season, but this is decidedly an exception to the rule. The period of 

 incubation is thirty days. 



" The young are easily reared on the same food as ducklings, but they want green food as 

 well, for which I strongly recommend young green onions, as also what are called clivers or burrs, 

 pulled from the hedgerows, of which goslings are particularly fond. When once fully fledged the 

 goslings will thrive well with no other food than they can find, grazing the fields or orchards till 

 November, when the keep gets short. If they are then shut up for a few weeks, and fed on meal 

 and some oats, they will quickly fatten to great weight, and come in excellently for Christmas, 

 when they sell at great prices in London and other markets. 



" Another source of the profit derived from geese is the soft down on the breasts, which is sold 

 at a good price. In many places where numbers of geese are kept, the down is plucked from the 

 living birds at various seasons of the year ; but this practice, though profitable, must give a great 

 deal of pain to the goose, and should be strongly condemned. 



" A large extent of water is not at all necessary for geese ; they can do very well with only a 

 large tub to bathe themselves in, but of course to look well the pure White Embden Goose requires 

 a large pond or brook." 



TOULOUSE GEESE. — "The Toulouse Geese take their name, rightly or wrongly, from the 

 important city in Southern France, where they are at least largely reared. They do not, perhaps, 

 stand quite so tall as the Embdens, but are more compact in shape, whence they are by many 

 preferred to them. They are light grey on their bodies and'breasts ; the neck dark grey, which 

 shades off rather lighter towards the back, and the wings are of the same colour, shading off again 

 lighter to the belly, where it becomes gradually white. The bill I can only describe as the colour 

 of sunburnt flesh, and the feet are a deep reddish orange. 



" In weight the Toulouse have generally surpassed the white geese ; but in 1872 my Embdens 

 stood first in this respect at the Birmingham Exhibition, where weight is supposed to gain the day; 



