474 CANADA GOOSE. 



ordinary as it may appear, I am well assured by the testimony 

 of several respectable persons, who have been eye-witnesses to 

 the fact, that they have been also known to return again in the 

 succeeding autumn to their former habitation. These accounts 

 are strongly corroborated by a letter which I some time ago 

 received from an obliging correspondent at New York, which 

 I shall here give at large, permitting him to tell his story in 

 his own way, and conclude my history of this species : — 



" Mr Piatt, a respectable farmer. on Long Island, being out 

 shooting in one of the bays which, in that part of the country, 

 abound with waterfowl, wounded a wild goose. Being wing- 

 tipped, and unable to fly, he caught it, and brought it home 

 alive. It proved to be a female ; and turning it into his yard 

 with a flock of tame geese, it soon became quite tame and 

 familiar, and in a little time its wounded wing entirely healed. 

 In the following spring, when the wild geese migrate to the 

 northward, a flock passed over Mr Piatt's barnyard ; and just 

 at that moment their leader happening to sound his bugle- 

 note, our goose, in whom its new habits and enjoyments had 

 not quite extinguished the love of liberty, and remembering 

 the well-known sound, spread its wings, mounted into the air, 

 joined the travellers, and soon disappeared. In the succeed- 

 ing autumn, the wild geese, as was usual, returned from the 

 northward in great numbers, to pass the winter in our bays 

 and rivers. Mr Piatt happened to be standing in his yard 

 when a flock passed directly over his barn. At that instant, 

 lie observed three geese detach themselves from the rest, and, 

 after wheeling round several times, alight in the middle of the 

 yard. Imagine his surprise and pleasure when, by certain 

 well-remembered signs, he recognised in one of the three his 

 long-lost fugitive. It was she indeed! She had travelled 

 many hundred miles to the lakes ; had there hatched and 

 reared her offspring ; and had now returned with her little 

 family to share with them the sweets of civilised life. 



" The truth of the foregoing relation can be attested by 

 many respectable people, to whom Mr Piatt has related the 



