112 BRITISH BIRDS. 



quenched his thirst in the waters of the stream, rose lightly on the wing, and 

 soared away to a distant land. The impious bird also prepared to follow, but 

 found himself unable to rise from the ground ; and his evolutions having 

 been observed by a fowler, he was presently caught and reduced to ser- 

 vitude, in which his race have continued, while the descendants of the 

 religious goose still enjoy that freedom in which they were created." 



Having thus estabhshed the Goose as a domesticated bird, let us look a 

 little into his history in his servitude. The famous Nottingham Goose-Fair 

 is held on the first Wednesday in October, and is said to be an institution 

 six hundred years old (vide ' Daily News,' Oct. 3, 1870). 



Sir Walter Scott has rendered immortal the office of the gosherd, or 

 goose-boy, in the person of Goose Gibbie ; and his warlike behaviour at the 

 wappenschaw of the Upper Ward of Clydesdale has become historic. He is 

 not the only soldier, however, who has followed that useful occupation, if 

 what is stated of Gneisenau, Blucher's friend, whom he called "his head," in 

 the ' Life and Times of Louisa, Queen of Prussia,' by Elizabeth Harriet 

 Hudson, vol. i. p. 170, is true. That authoress states that " his first occupa- 

 tion in life was driving geese," till " the goose-boy was claimed by his rela- 

 tions and educated for the army." She also adds (chap. i. p. 142) : — 

 " Mecklenburg-Strelitz is watered by several rivers and chains of small bright 

 lakes. Large straggling flocks of geese, each of them tended by a young 

 woman of the lowest class, called Gansmadchen, or goose-maiden, form a 

 characteristic and also picturesque feature in the rural scenery. It has been 

 said, with some exaggeration, that half the quill pens used in Europe come 

 from Mecklenburg : certainly in no other part of the continent are geese 

 so well fed and so numerous. The country people cure and smoke the breasts 

 of these birds like bacon. All over Germany, a goose stuffed with chestnuts 

 takes almost as important a place in the ciiisine as roast beef holds in that of 

 Old England." 



Again, Thompson, in his ' History of Boston, Lincolnshire,' p. 675, 

 says :— " Previous to the inclosure of the fens several persons kept each a 



