250 
TAME 
Goose. 
GREY LAG GOOSE. Crass Il. 
~ eoverts of the tail and vent-feathers; the drake 
its cutled feathers. The goose in other colors 
sports less in the tame kind than the other. 
~ Tame geese are of vast longevity. Mr. W2i- 
lughby gives an example of one that attained 
eighty years. They are kept in vast multitudes 
in the fens of Lincolnshire ; a single person has 
frequently a thousand old geese, each of which 
will rear seven, so that towards the end of the 
season he will become master of eight thousand. 
I beg leave to repeat here a part of the his- 
tory of their economy from my tour in Scotland, 
in order to complete my account. 
During the breeding season these birds are 
lodged in the same houses with the inhabitants, 
and even in their very bed-chambers ; in every 
apartment are three rows of coarse wicker pens, 
placed one above another ; each bird has its se- 
parate lodge divided from the other, which it 
keeps possession of during the time of sitting. 
A person, called a Gozzard, 1. e. Gookemara. 
attends the flock, and twice a day drives the 
whole to water; then brings them back to their 
habitations, helping those that live in the’ upper 
stories to their nests, without ever an 
single bird. ag 
The geese are plucked five times in the year; 
the first plucking is at Lady-Duy, for feathers 
