Goose

a family of aquatic birds allied to the duck and the swan. The goose is naturally less confined to the water than the duck and is vegetarian in diet. The goose is larger than the duck. Its legs are placed farther forward. In Europe, especially in Germany, the domestic goose holds the place of the turkey in America. It is the descendant of the European wild goose. Its quills or stout wing feathers were long used for pens. There are some even yet who will write with no other. Live goose feathers, that is, feathers plucked from the living birds, make the softest feather beds and pillows. The wholesale goose market of Berlin is one of the sights of the city. In addition to the geese raised in every village an immense number is imported, chiefly from Russia, to the value of $2,000,000 annually. They are brought alive from the Russian frontier in five-decked goose cars, holding 1,200 geese each. During the autumn a special goose train brings in from fifteen to forty cars a day. The German villages, the traditional home of the goose-herd, now raise 4,000,000 geese a year. The empire imports 7,000,000 geese a year, chiefly from the region of the Black Sea. The common American or Canada goose is a noble game bird, ranking with the wild turkey. Its "honk, honk," as a long v-shaped line led by an old gander fans the air on the way northward, is one of the first signs of spring; and, when still longer lines of wild geese go south, the northern farmer feels that winter is upon him. The breeding grounds of the wild goose are retreating farther and farther north in British America before the advance of settlements. Hunters in the northwestern wheat-growing region, particularly in the Red River Valley, still count on sport during the autumn migration. They shoot the geese on the wing, frequently from pits or booths made in the passes usually traversed by the low-flying geese on the way to or from some lake where they are wont to rest at night to the stubble field where they glean by day under the guard of sentinels. Wild geese are less afraid of a team than of a person afoot. They seem to recognize a gun at a distance. The Canada goose takes kindly to captivity, raising its young in entire content. "In October, 1901," says William T.Hornaday, "a flock of nine geese, flying southward over the New York Zoological Park, suddenly espied our flock on the pond. Without a moment's hesitation, the wild birds sailed down and alighted on the shore beside their relatives, and invited themselves to the banquet of cracked corn. On the following day, seven of the visitors were coaxed into a huge wire cage on the shore, where they were caught and wingclipped to prevent further wandering away to danger. The seven are still there, but the two unclipped birds, after remaining all winter, flew away north the following spring, and it is quite likely that their bad judgment has, ere now, cost them their lives."

See Duck