EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 231 
kept them in health and exercise. When ready for the market, 
these Geese, except such as might be retained for further 
plucking, were driven to London, to supply the poulterers, 
especially from some of the fens near Revesby. Revesby was 
where Sir Joseph Banks had a country seat, at which Pennant, 
who had known Banks for some three years, was a welcome 
guest, and here he tells us he made “ many observations on 
the zoology of the country.’’* 
Although Pennant has so much to say about tame Geese, 
very little is told about wild ones in the “ Tour,” but in the 
“ British Zoology’? under the head of Grey-lag Goose, he is 
rather more explicit. ‘This species,’ we are informed, 
“resides in the fens the whole year, breeds there, and hatches 
about eight or nine young, which are often taken, easily made 
tame, and esteemed most excellent meat.”’+ 
It was from this stock that the greater part of England’s 
domestic geese had sprung. But that the Grey-lag was the 
only wild Goose which formerly bred in Lincolnshire, Cambridge- 
shire and Norfolk, as has been asserted, is more difficult 
of proof. Of the Bean Goose, and under that name he, 
no doubt, included the Pink-footed Goose, Pennant remarks 
that they arrive in Lincolnshire in autumn, “they always 
light on cornfields, and feed much on the green wheat. They 
never breed in the fens, but all disappear in May.’ { This 
seems a plain statement about their habits, which he regarded 
as opposed to those of the Grey-lag: The west side of the 
fens was evidently the most accessible, and that is first de- 
scribed by the naturalist in the narrative now to be quoted. 
Pennant, who it must be remembered was writing for 
the general public and not for that little band of naturalists 
who were his personal friends, does not give us by any means 
all the ornithological details one now longs for ; nevertheless, 
we must be grateful. He says :— 
“The fen called the West Fen is the place where the 
Ruffs and Reeves resort to in the greatest numbers ; and 
many other sorts of water fowl, which do not require the 
* See ‘ Literary Life,” p. 8. A good picture of the house is given in 
Howlett’s ‘‘ Views in Lincoln ’”’ (1805). 
+ ‘ British Zoology,” II., p. 570. 
t “ British Zoology,” II., p. 575. 
