208 BIRDS AND MAN 



And one wonders if in the long centuries, 

 running to thousands of years, of tame flightless 

 existence, the strongest impulse of the wild 

 migrant has been wholly extinguished in the 

 domestic goose ? We regard him as a compara- 

 tively unchangeable species, and it is probable 

 that the unexercised faculty is not dead but 

 sleeping, and would wake again in favourable 

 circumstances. The strength of the wild bird's 

 passion has been aptly described by Miss Dora 

 Sigerson in her little poem, " The Flight of the 

 Wild Geese." The poem, oddly enough, is not 

 about geese but about men — wild Irishmen who 

 were called Wild Geese ; but the bird's powerful 

 impulse and homing faculty are employed as an 

 illustration, and admirably described : — 



Flinging the salt from their wings, and despair from their 



hearts, 

 They arise on the breast of the storm with a cry and are gone. 

 When will you come home, wild geese, in your thousand 



strong ? . . . 

 Not the fierce wind can stay your return or tumultuous 



sea, . . . 

 Only death in his reaping could make you return no more. 



Now arctic and antarctic geese are alike in 



