THE WILD GOOSE
“When we say of some one, ‘He is as silly as a goose,’ we think we have
applied the strongest term indicative of foolishness that our language
furnishes. Is the goose then so silly? That is what I am about to
discuss with you, my friends.
“I agree at the outset that its appearance is not such as to give a
high idea of its intellectual faculties. Its head is too small for its
body, its diminutive and expressionless eyes, its enormous beak hiding
its whole face, its waddling walk made still more awkward by the fatty
protuberance that hangs down under its stomach and strikes its feet,
its neck sometimes awkwardly outstretched, sometimes sharply bent as if
broken, its cry surpassing in hoarseness the note of the hoarsest
clarion, its angry or frightened whistle resembling the hiss of the
snake when surprised—all that, I hasten to acknowledge, does not
prepossess one in favor of the bird. But how often, under a rude
exterior, is hidden a refined nature! Let us not judge the goose by its
appearance, but let us go deeper before forming a fixed opinion.”
“I see what you are up to, Uncle,” interrupted Jules; “you are taking
up your favorite refrain, the praise of the slandered. A while ago you
extolled the two ugliest of creatures, the bat and the toad; now you
are going to undertake the defense of the goose and clear it of the
slander it suffers in being called silly.”
“Why should I deny it, my child? Yes, my favorite occupation is
pleading the cause of the weak, the miserable, the traduced, the
outlawed. The strong and the powerful are not wanting in admirers, so I
can pass them over very quickly; but I should reproach myself all my
life were I to forget the forsaken and not bring to light their good
qualities, unrecognized and, indeed, too often shamefully
misrepresented as they are. As to its treatment, the goose needs no
pleading of mine: it is too valuable to us not to be taken care of as
it deserves. The only reproach I have to bring has to do with the
reputation for stupidity it has been made to bear. I am well aware that
the goose, as a sensible creature, is superbly indifferent to this
calumny, and I offer it my congratulations; but, after all, this false
repute is an instance of error, and wherever I find error I give it
battle.
“First, I will show you the goose as an adept in geography. In spite of
our books, maps, and atlases, how the reputedly silly bird would
surpass all of us and many others! Know that in its wild state the
goose is an impassioned traveler, even more so than its companion, the
duck. Influenced by considerations of convenience, the latter often
nests in our latitudes; the goose is more given to mistrust and passes
us by. For the laying of its eggs it must seek regions as near the Pole
as possible, regions of never-melting ice. The desolate wastes of
Greenland and Spitzbergen, and, still farther north, the islands lost
in the fogs of the polar ocean, are the regions whither they feel bound
to return every summer. The point of departure, where the bird has
passed the winter in the midst of plenty when its native country was
plunged in continual night and buried under fathomless depths of snow
and ice—the point of departure is far south, in central Africa perhaps,
so that the distance to be covered measures almost a
quarter-circumference of the earth. Now, my friends, let us put
ourselves in the place of the wild goose just about to take its flight
for the long expedition, and see which of the two parties will be the
more perplexed, the more stupid. I leave out of the account means of
transportation: however good a mount we might have, we should cut a
pitiable figure beside the goose, which with powerful wing soars above
the clouds and conquers space. I pass by the means of transportation
and ask only what direction is to be taken. I appeal to your knowledge
of geography.”
“Since it is only necessary to go north,” answered Jules, “I should
first make sure of the points of the compass. I should turn toward the
sun, and if it is rising, the north would be on the left; if setting,
the north would be on the right. This direction fixed, I should set out
accordingly.”
“In the supposed case that method is inapplicable. As an experienced
traveler husbanding its strength and hence making the most of the
cooler hours, the goose travels only at night.”
“Then I would turn toward the constellation of the Bear, toward the
polar star. The north is in that direction.”
“Very good: you would find the north in that way if the night were
clear; but if the night were dark and you could not see the stars, what
would you do?”
“I should use a compass, the needle of which always points nearly
northward.”
“But if you did not have that precious instrument, the traveler’s guide
in the midst of the waste solitudes of land and sea—if you had no
compass, how would you find your way, my friend?”
“In that case, Uncle, I should be very much perplexed. Perplexed is not
the word; on the contrary, I should see very clearly that there was no
possibility of my finding my way. I should not budge from the spot, for
I might as well try to guide myself blindfolded.”
“Here, my dear child, the bird reputed to be so stupid, so foolish,
towers above us all by a thousand cubits. Without consulting the rising
or setting sun, paying no heed to the constellations, for which it has
no use, availing itself of no compass but its instinct, which says,
‘This is the way’—in darkness as well as in light, the goose plunges
into space and flies northward.
“But that is only the beginning of the problem. A simple northern
direction leads, according to the point of departure, to very different
regions, sometimes to Siberia, sometimes to Spitzbergen and Lapland,
sometimes to the northern islands of Iceland, Greenland, and what
others shall I say? But no such vague destination will do for the
goose. The bird must return to its native country, of which it retains
an ineffaceable remembrance, just as a man, through all the shifts and
changes of his stirring life, preserves the cherished memory of his own
village. The goose, then, must again find the sea whose murmur it
listened to in youth. In that sea is a certain islet, on that islet a
certain moor, and on that moor a certain hidden retreat covered with
rushes and sheltered from the wind by a rock. That is its birthplace;
it must find its way.
“Propose such an undertaking to a navigator provided with first-rate
charts and versed in all the special lore of his calling, and he would
finally succeed, it is true, but would encounter difficulties due to
the inhospitable seas of those parts. Propose it to one of us, who have
none of the requisite nautical knowledge, and it would put our
geography to the test without any chance of ultimate success. But this
task which man, with all his reasoning powers, would in the great
majority of instances be incapable of performing, the goose
accomplishes without the slightest hesitation. As though the desired
spot were right before its eyes, it goes straight forward. The
featureless expanse of ocean and the confusing details of the
landscape, the halts on the margins of lakes, the damp and obscurity of
clouds that have to be traversed, the emotions of terror excited when
the ambushed hunter discharges his leaden hail—none of these things
diverts it from its course. If detours must be made in order to avoid
danger or find food, it makes them, however long they may be, and then
resumes the right direction without a moment’s hesitation. It
calculates its speed and regulates its halts so as to arrive neither
too early nor too late; for it knows perfectly the order of the
seasons, when the snow melts and when the grass turns green. At last,
on a fine day when the first little flowers are just peeping through
their snowy shrouds, it reaches its ocean inlet, its little island, its
native heath, its cherished nesting-place.
“I have finished. Now, my friends, which one of you would like to
engage in a geography match—not with a veteran goose experienced in
such voyages; you would be too hopelessly outclassed—but with the
youngest gosling, the merest novice of them all?”
“On that subject,” Jules made answer, “I admit that the youngest
gosling knows more than I.”
“And than I,” chimed in Louis, and Emile added: “If the goose knew that
I can’t even find my bearings yet on the map, how it would make fun of
poor Emile! You will tell us so much about its cleverness, Uncle, that
after this I shan’t be able to meet a goose without blushing.”
“It is very praiseworthy to blush at one’s ignorance,” his uncle
assured him, “especially on a subject as necessary as geography; for it
is a sign that in future one will do one’s best; but none may expect to
rival the goose. We acquire our knowledge by reflection, study,
observation, experience; an animal does not acquire knowledge, it
possesses knowledge from its birth. Without ever having learned it,
without ever having seen it done, it does everything belonging to its
manner of living, and does it admirably well. A feeling not reasoned, a
secret impulse proper to its nature, guides it in its acts; it is
instinct, the marvels of which I have often related to you. If, to
accomplish its astonishing journeys, the goose had to learn geography
as we do, it would never see its beloved native land again; but it has
as guide the infallible inspiration of instinct, and with this inner
compass it wings its unerring way straight toward its natal islet,
however hidden by polar fogs that islet may be.
“Its manner of traveling is not less remarkable. I have already told
you something about the duck; I come back to the subject in order to
emphasize the high degree of mechanical science possessed by the goose.
A bird on the wing is held up by the air which its wings strike; it is
also impeded in its progress by the air, the resistance of which it
must conquer. To overcome this obstacle with the least possible fatigue
what does the bird do, especially the crane, heron, stork, and other
wading birds encumbered with long legs and a long neck? They bring the
neck back on the breast, point their sharp beak forward, and, holding
their outstretched legs close together, trail them behind. With form
thus trimmed to extreme slimness, and with beak acting as the point of
a spear-head, they cleave the air as a ship plows the wave with its
sharp prow. No bird is wanting in this elementary principle of
mechanics: to gather the members together and taper the body in the
direction of motion, so as to encounter the least resistance. By
undertaking these very long flights in large flocks the duck and the
goose improve upon this general method.
“Before going further let us draw a comparison. I will suppose that you
are a company of playmates running across lots, and you come to a tract
all covered with thick brushwood that has to be parted with feet and
hands before you can get through. If each one goes about it in his own
way, one here and another there just as it happens, is it not true that
the sum total of fatigue for the whole company will be the greatest
possible, since each one will have spent his strength in opening a way
for himself through the thicket? But now let us suppose, on the other
hand, that one of you, the most vigorous of the company, walks at the
head, parting the underbrush, and that the others follow him, step by
step, taking advantage of the path opened by the leader of the file. Is
it not true that under these conditions the sum total of fatigue will
be the least possible?”
“All that is obvious,” Emile replied. “They could even, if it were a
long way through the brushwood, take turns in going ahead, and then no
one would be really tired out.”
“This device of Emile’s has, as you already know, been put in practice
from time immemorial by ducks on their long flights. Nor is the goose
less happily inspired. If the flock is a small one, the birds composing
it range themselves in a continuous single file, each following bird
touching with its beak the tail of the preceding one, in order that the
way opened through the air may not have time to close again. If the
flock is numerous, two files of equal length are formed, and they join
each other at an acute angle, advancing point first. This angular
arrangement, which we find imitated in the ship’s prow, in the farmer’s
plowshare, in the thin edge of a wedge, and in any number of utensils
fashioned for penetrating a dense mass by overcoming resistance, is the
one best suited for cleaving the air with the least possible fatigue.
If, to arrange its flying squadron, the goose had taken counsel of the
most consummate science of our engineers, it could not have done
better. But the goose has no need of others; advised by its instinct,
it knew long before us, who call it stupid, one of the great secrets of
mechanics, the principle of the wedge.
“Moreover, to divide among all the members of the flock the excess of
fatigue felt by the leader of the file in being the first to cleave
with a stroke of his wing the resisting atmosphere, each one in its
turn occupies the post of honor, the forward end of the single file, or
the apex of the two joining files. It is a repetition of Emile’s
expedient for penetrating a considerable extent of brushwood. After its
turn of service at the front the leading goose retires for rest to the
rear of one or other of the branches of the angle, while a new leader
takes its place. By this means of equitable rotation excessive fatigue
on the part of any one of the migrating flock is avoided, and no
stragglers are left behind.”
“And no goose has to be urged to take what you call the post of honor,
the arduous post at the front?” queried Emile.
“None has to be urged. It is their duty, and they all fulfil it with a
zeal that in many instances man might take as a model. To the recusant
slacker the smallest gosling would give a lesson in what is owing to
the common welfare. As soon as the leader feels its strength weakening,
the next one in order takes its place without having to be told.”
“Decidedly,” interposed Jules, “those geese, with their cleverness in
geography and their skill in the art of flying in flocks and in
devising means for mutual assistance, are not so silly as they are said
to be.”
“The flight of a flock of geese is generally very high; they do not
come near the ground except in foggy weather. If on such an occasion
some farm chances to be near, it occasionally happens that resounding
clarion calls answer each other from sky to earth and earth to sky.
That is the interchange of greetings between wild and tame geese. The
wild ones invite the captives to come and join them in their pilgrimage
to the promised land of the North. The proposal puts the poultry-yard
all in a turmoil, so compelling is the call of instinct. The farm geese
become excited, scream, beat their sides with their large wings; but
the plumpness of captivity prevents their flight. One less impeded
takes wing, rises in the air, and is gone.”
“To Spitzbergen?” asked Emile.
“Yes, to Spitzbergen, if strength does not fail it, but it is very
doubtful whether it will be able to follow its wild companions to the
end.
“The goose feeds chiefly on herbage. With its wide beak furnished at
the edges with little scales resembling sharp teeth, it browses the
turf very much as does the sheep. A field of green wheat particularly
delights it. If a rather large flock alights there the harvest is
seriously injured. During the devastation sentries keep a look-out,
some here, others there, motionless, neck outstretched, eye and ear on
the alert. Let danger approach, and immediately the trumpet sounds. At
the warning the flock ceases grazing, runs with wings open to get a
start, then takes flight and mounts obliquely to heights above the
reach of a shot. The same precautions are taken in the hours of repose;
furthermore, actuated by an excess of prudence, they refuse to trust
entirely to the sentinels, but each sleeps with one eye open, as we
say. Thus are the ruses of the hunter nearly always baffled when he
tries to get near them.
“I will stop here for to-day. I hope that, without going into other
details that would carry us too far, I have reinstated the slandered
bird in your esteem. The goose is not silly; on the contrary, it
possesses to a high degree the wiles, the talents, in fact everything
necessary for the admirable fulfilment of its mission as a goose.”