58 
CANADA GOOSE. 
have actually succeeded in mounting into the higher regions of the 
air, and joined a party passing to the north ; and, extraordinary 
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 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. Platt, 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 W^ild Geese migrate to the northward, a flock 
passed over Mr. Platt’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. Platt 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 
