58 



CANADA GOOSE. 



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

 respectable persons J who have been eye-witnesses to the fact, that 

 they have been also known to return again in the succeeding au- 

 tumn 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 con- 

 clude 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 water-fowl, 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 barn yard; 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 succeeding 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, he 

 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 remem- 

 bered signs, he recognized in one of the three his long-lost fugi- 

 tive. 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 civilized life. 



