114 



THE CANADA GOOSE. 



and from that time to this the two very distinct 

 species of geese (the one being only half the 

 size of the other) have become one inseparable 

 family. The two Bernacles, being pinioned, 

 cannot of course accompany the Canadians in 

 their wonted peregrinations through the country. 

 But they remain in unalterable alliance and 

 friendship with five other Canadians, which, with 

 themselves, have undergone a similar process of 

 losing part of the wing, to prevent their depar- 

 ture from home. 



On my return from Italy in the autumn of 

 1841, the keeper informed me that, in the pre- 

 ceding spring, one of the little Bernacle gan- 

 ders, accompanied by an old Canadian goose, 

 had come on the island where the mansion 

 stands, and formed a kind of nest on the border 

 of a flower-bed near the boat-house ; that the 

 female had laid five eggs in it, and that all these 

 eggs had turned out addle. I could easily com- 

 prehend the latter part of his information rela- 

 tive to the eggs : but had he told me that the 

 income tax is a blessing, and that the national 

 debt is an honour to the country, I could more 

 readily have believed Jiim, than that a Canada 

 goose had been fool enough to unite herself 



