GEESE: AN APPRECIATION AND A MEMORY
One November evening, in the neighbourhood of Lyndhurst, I saw a flock
of geese marching in a long procession, led, as their custom is, by a
majestical gander; they were coming home from their feeding-ground in
the forest, and when I spied them were approaching their owner's
cottage. Arrived at the wooden gate of the garden in front of the
cottage, the leading bird drew up square before it, and with repeated
loud screams demanded admittance. Pretty soon, in response to the
summons, a man came out of the cottage, walked briskly down the garden
path and opened the gate, but only wide enough to put his right leg
through; then, placing his foot and knee against the leading bird, he
thrust him roughly back; as he did so three young geese pressed
forward and were allowed to pass in; then the gate was slammed in the
face of the gander and the rest of his followers, and the man went
back to the cottage. The gander's indignation was fine to see, though
he had most probably experienced the same rude treatment on many
previous occasions. Drawing up to the gate again he called more loudly
than before; then deliberately lifted a leg, and placing his broad
webbed foot like an open hand against the gate actually tried to push
it open! His strength was not sufficient; but he continued to push and
to call until the man returned to open the gate and let the birds go
in.
It was an amusing scene, and the behaviour of the bird struck me as
characteristic. It was this lofty spirit of the goose and strict
adhesion to his rights, as well as his noble appearance and the
stately formality and deliberation of his conduct, that caused me very
long ago to respect and admire him above all our domestic birds.
Doubtless from the aesthetic point of view other domesticated species
are his superiors in some things: the mute swan, "floating double,"
graceful and majestical, with arched neck and ruffled scapulars; the
oriental pea-fowl in his glittering mantle; the helmeted guinea-fowl,
powdered with stars, and the red cock with his military bearing--a
shining Elizabethan knight of the feathered world, singer, lover, and
fighter. It is hardly to be doubted that, mentally, the goose is above
all these; and to my mind his, too, is the nobler figure; but it is a
very familiar figure, and we have not forgotten the reason of its
presence among us. He satisfies a material want only too generously,
and on this account is too much associated in the mind with mere
flavours. We keep a swan or a peacock for ornament; a goose for the
table--he is the Michaelmas and Christmas bird. A somewhat similar
debasement has fallen on the sheep in Australia. To the man in the
bush he is nothing but a tallow-elaborating organism, whose destiny it
is to be cast, at maturity, into the melting vat, and whose chief use
it is to lubricate the machinery of civilisation. It a little shocks,
and at the same time amuses, our Colonial to find that great artists
in the parent country admire this most unpoetic beast, and waste their
time and talents in painting it.
Some five or six years ago, in the Alpine Journal, Sir Martin Conway
gave a lively and amusing account of his first meeting with A. D.
M'Cormick, the artist who subsequently accompanied him to the
Karakoram Himalayas. "A friend," he wrote, "came to me bringing in his
pocket a crumpled-up water sketch or impression of a lot of geese. I
was struck by the breadth of the treatment, and I remember saying that
the man who could see such monumental magnificence in a flock of geese
ought to be the kind of man to paint mountains, and render somewhat of
their majesty."
I will venture to say that he looked at the sketch or impression with
the artist's clear eye, but had not previously so looked at the living
creature; or had not seen it clearly, owing to the mist of images--if
that be a permissible word--that floated between it and his
vision--remembered flavours and fragrances, of rich meats, and of sage
and onions and sweet apple sauce. When this interposing mist is not
present, who can fail to admire the goose--that stately bird-shaped
monument of clouded grey or crystal white marble, to be seen standing
conspicuous on any village green or common in England? For albeit a
conquered bird, something of the ancient wild and independent spirit
survives to give him a prouder bearing than we see in his fellow
feathered servants. He is the least timid of our domestic birds, yet
even at a distance he regards your approach in an attitude distinctly
reminiscent of the grey-lag goose, the wariest of wild fowl,
stretching up his neck and standing motionless and watchful, a
sentinel on duty. Seeing him thus, if you deliberately go near him he
does not slink or scuttle away, as other domestic birds of meaner
spirits do, but boldly advances to meet and challenge you. How keen
his senses are, how undimmed by ages of captivity the ancient instinct
of watchfulness is in him, every one must know who has slept in lonely
country houses. At some late hour of the night the sleeper was
suddenly awakened by the loud screaming of the geese; they had
discovered the approach of some secret prowler, a fox perhaps, or a
thievish tramp or gipsy, before a dog barked. In many a lonely
farmhouse throughout the land you will be told that the goose is the
better watch-dog.
When we consider this bird purely from the aesthetic point of view--and
here I am speaking of geese generally, all of the thirty species of
the sub-family Anserinae, distributed over the cold and temperate
regions of the globe--we find that several of them possess a rich and
beautiful colouring, and, if not so proud, often a more graceful
carriage than our domestic bird, or its original, the wild grey-lag
goose. To know these birds is to greatly admire them, and we may now
add that this admiration is no new thing on the earth. It is the
belief of distinguished Egyptologists that a fragmentary fresco,
discovered at Medum, dates back to a time at least four thousand years
before the Christian era, and is probably the oldest picture in the
world. It is a representation of six geese, of three different
species, depicted with marvellous fidelity, and a thorough
appreciation of form and colouring.
Among the most distinguished in appearance and carriage of the
handsome exotic species is the Magellanic goose, one of the five or
six species of the Antarctic genus Chloephaga, found in Patagonia and
the Magellan Islands. One peculiarity of this bird is that the sexes
differ in colouring, the male being white, with grey mottlings,
whereas the prevailing colour of the female is a ruddy brown,--a fine
rich colour set off with some white, grey, intense cinnamon, and
beautiful black mottlings. Seen on the wing the flock presents a
somewhat singular appearance, as of two distinct species associating
together, as we may see when by chance gulls and rooks, or sheldrakes
and black scoters, mix in one flock.
This fine bird has long been introduced into this country, and as it
breeds freely it promises to become quite common. I can see it any
day; but these exiles, pinioned and imprisoned in parks, are not quite
like the Magellanic geese I was intimate with in former years, in
Patagonia and in the southern pampas of Buenos Ayres, where they
wintered every year in incredible numbers, and were called "bustards"
by the natives. To see them again, as I have seen them, by day and all
day long in their thousands, and to listen again by night to their
wild cries, I would willingly give up, in exchange, all the
invitations to dine which I shall receive, all the novels I shall
read, all the plays I shall witness, in the next three years; and some
other miserable pleasures might be thrown in. Listening to the birds
when, during migration, on a still frosty night, they flew low,
following the course of some river, flock succeeding flock all night
long; or heard from a herdsman's hut on the pampas, when thousands of
the birds had encamped for the night on the plain hard by, the effect
of their many voices (like that of their appearance when seen flying)
was singular, as well as beautiful, on account of the striking
contrasts in the various sounds they uttered. On clear frosty nights
they are most loquacious, and their voices may be heard by the hour,
rising and falling, now few, and now many taking part in the endless
confabulation--a talkee-talkee and concert in one; a chatter as of
many magpies; the solemn deep, honk-honk, the long, grave note
changing to a shuddering sound; and, most wonderful, the fine silvery
whistle of the male, steady or tremulous, now long and now short,
modulated a hundred ways--wilder and more beautiful than the night-cry
of the widgeon, brighter than the voice of any shore bird, or any
warbler, thrush or wren, or the sound of any wind instrument.
It is probable that those who have never known the Magellanic goose in
a state of nature are best able to appreciate its fine qualities in
its present semi-domestic state in England. At all events the
enthusiasm with which a Londoner spoke of this bird in my presence
some time ago came to me rather as a surprise. It was at the studio in
St John's Wood of our greatest animal painter, one Sunday evening, and
the talk was partly about birds, when an elderly gentleman said that
he was pleased to meet some one who would be able to tell him the name
of a wonderful bird he had lately seen in St James's Park. His
description was vague; he could not say what its colour was, nor what
sort of beak it had, nor whether its feet were webbed or not; but it
was a large tall bird, and there were two of them. It was the way this
bird had comported itself towards him that had so taken him. As he
went through the park at the side of the enclosure, he caught sight of
the pair some distance away on the grass, and the birds, observing
that he had stopped in his walk to regard them, left off feeding, or
whatever they were doing, and came to him. Not to be fed--it was
impossible to believe that they had any such motive; it was solely and
purely a friendly feeling towards him which caused them immediately to
respond to his look, and to approach him, to salute him, in their way.
And when they had approached to within three or four yards of where he
stood, advancing with a quiet dignity, and had then uttered a few soft
low sounds, accompanied with certain graceful gestures, they turned
and left him; but not abruptly, with their backs towards him--oh, no,
they did nothing so common; they were not like other birds--they were
perfect in everything; and, moving from him, half paused at intervals,
half turning first to one side then the other, inclining their heads
as they went. Here our old friend rose and paced up and down the
floor, bowing to this side and that and making other suitable
gestures, to try to give us some faint idea of the birds' gentle
courtesy and exquisite grace. It was, he assured us, most astonishing;
the birds' gestures and motions were those of a human being, but in
their perfection immeasurably superior to anything of the kind to be
seen in any Court in Europe or the world.
The birds he had described, I told him, were no doubt Upland Geese.
"Geese!" he exclaimed, in a tone of surprise, and disgust. "Are you
speaking seriously? Geese! Oh, no, nothing like geese--a sort of
ostrich!"
It was plain that he had no accurate knowledge of birds; if he had
caught sight of a kingfisher or green woodpecker, he would probably
have described it as a sort of peacock. Of the goose, he only knew
that it is a ridiculous, awkward creature, proverbial for its
stupidity, although very good to eat; and it wounded him to find that
any one could think so meanly of his intelligence and taste as to
imagine him capable of greatly admiring any bird called a goose, or
any bird in any way related to a goose.
I will now leave the subject of the beautiful antarctic goose, the
"bustard" of the horsemen of the pampas, and "sort of ostrich" of our
Londoner, to relate a memory of my early years, and of how I first
became an admirer of the familiar domestic goose. Never since have I
looked on it in such favourable conditions.
Two miles from my home there stood an old mud-built house, thatched
with rushes, and shaded by a few ancient half-dead trees. Here lived a
very old woman with her two unmarried daughters, both withered and
grey as their mother; indeed, in appearance, they were three amiable
sister witches, all very very old. The high ground on which the house
stood sloped down to an extensive reed- and rush-grown marsh, the
source of an important stream; it was a paradise of wild fowl, swan,
roseate spoonbill, herons white and herons grey, ducks of half a dozen
species, snipe and painted snipe, and stilt, plover and godwit; the
glossy ibis, and the great crested blue ibis with a powerful voice.
All these interested, I might say fascinated, me less than the tame
geese that spent most of their time in or on the borders of the marsh
in the company of the wild birds. The three old women were so fond of
their geese that they would not part with one for love or money; the
most they would ever do would be to present an egg, in the laying
season, to some visitor as a special mark of esteem.
It was a grand spectacle, when the entire flock, numbering upwards of
a thousand, stood up on the marsh and raised their necks on a person's
approach. It was grand to hear them, too, when, as often happened,
they all burst out in a great screaming concert. I can hear that
mighty uproar now!
With regard to the character of the sound: we have seen in a former
chapter that the poet Cowper thought not meanly of the domestic grey
goose as a vocalist, when heard on a common or even in a farmyard. But
there is a vast difference in the effect produced on the mind when the
sound is heard amid its natural surroundings in silent desert places.
Even hearing them as I did, from a distance, on that great marsh,
where they existed almost in a state of nature, the sound was not
comparable to that of the perfectly wild bird in his native haunts.
The cry of the wild grey-lag was described by Robert Gray in his Birds
of the West of Scotland. Of the bird's voice he writes: "My most
recent experiences (August 1870) in the Outer Hebrides remind me of a
curious effect which I noted in connection with the call-note of this
bird in these quiet solitudes. I had reached South Uist, and taken up
my quarters under the hospitable roof of Mr Birnie, at Grogarry ...
and in the stillness of the Sabbath morning following my arrival was
aroused from sleep by the cries of the grey-lags as they flew past the
house. Their voices, softened by distance, sounded not unpleasantly,
reminding me of the clanging of church bells in the heart of a large
town."
It is a fact, I think, that to many minds the mere wildness
represented by the voice of a great wild bird in his lonely haunts is
so grateful, that the sound itself, whatever its quality may be,
delights, and is more than the most beautiful music. A certain
distinguished man of letters and Church dignitary was once asked, a
friend tells me, why he lived away from society, buried in the
loneliest village on the dreary East coast; at that spot where,
standing on the flat desolate shore you look over the North Sea, and
have no land between you and far Spitzbergen. He answered, that he
made his home there because it was the only spot in England in which,
sitting in his own room, he could listen to the cry of the pink-footed
goose. Only those who have lost their souls will fail to understand.
The geese I have described, belonging to the three old women, could
fly remarkably well, and eventually some of them, during their flights
down stream, discovered at a distance of about eight miles from home
the immense, low, marshy plain bordering the sea-like Plata River.
There were no houses and no people in that endless green, wet land,
and they liked it so well that they visited it more and more often, in
small flocks of a dozen to twenty birds, going and coming all day
long, until all knew the road. It was observed that when a man on foot
or on horseback appeared in sight of one of these flocks, the birds at
this distance from home were as wary as really wild birds, and watched
the stranger's approach in alarm, and when he was still at a
considerable distance rose and flew away beyond sight.
The old dames grieved at this wandering spirit in their beloved birds,
and became more and more anxious for their safety. But by this time
the aged mother was fading visibly into the tomb, though so slowly
that long months went by while she lay on her bed, a weird-looking
object--I remember her well--leaner, greyer, more ghost-like, than the
silent, lean, grey heron on the marsh hard by. And at last she faded
out of life, aged, it was said by her descendants, a hundred and ten
years; and, after she was dead, it was found that of that great
company of noble birds there remained only a small remnant of about
forty, and these were probably incapable of sustained flight. The
others returned no more; but whether they met their death from duck
and swan shooters in the marshes, or had followed the great river down
to the sea, forgetting their home, was never known. For about a year
after they had ceased going back, small flocks were occasionally seen
in the marshes, very wild and strong on the wing, but even these, too,
vanished at last.
It is probable that, but for powder and shot, the domestic goose of
Europe, by occasionally taking to a feral life in thinly-settled
countries, would ere this have become widely distributed over the
earth.
And one wonders if in the long centuries running to thousands of
years, of tame flightless existence, the strongest impulse of the wild
migrant has been wholly extinguished in the domestic goose? We regard
him as a comparatively unchangeable species, and it is probable that
the unexercised faculty is not dead but sleeping, and would wake again
in favourable circumstances. The strength of the wild bird's passion
has been aptly described by Miss Dora Sigerson in her little poem,
"The Flight of the Wild Geese." The poem, oddly enough, is not about
geese but about men--wild Irishmen who were called Wild Geese; but the
bird's powerful impulse and homing faculty are employed as an
illustration, and admirably described:--
Flinging the salt from their wings, and despair from their hearts
They arise on the breast of the storm with a cry and are gone.
When will you come home, wild geese, in your thousand strong?...
Not the fierce wind can stay your return or tumultuous sea,...
Only death in his reaping could make you return no more.
Now arctic and antarctic geese are alike in this their devotion to
their distant breeding-ground, the cradle and true home of the species
or race; and I will conclude this chapter with an incident related to
me many years ago by a brother who was sheep-farming in a wild and
lonely district on the southern frontier of Buenos Ayres. Immense
numbers of upland geese in great flocks used to spend the cold months
on the plains where he had his lonely hut; and one morning in August
in the early spring of that southern country, some days after all the
flocks had taken their departure to the south, he was out riding, and
saw at a distance before him on the plain a pair of geese. They were
male and female--a white and a brown bird. Their movements attracted
his attention and he rode to them. The female was walking steadily on
in a southerly direction, while the male, greatly excited, and calling
loudly from time to time, walked at a distance ahead, and constantly
turned back to see and call to his mate, and at intervals of a few
minutes he would rise up and fly, screaming, to a distance of some
hundreds of yards; then finding that he had not been followed, he
would return and alight at a distance of forty or fifty yards in
advance of the other bird, and begin walking on as before. The female
had one wing broken, and, unable to fly, had set out on her long
journey to the Magellanic Islands on her feet; and her mate, though
called to by that mysterious imperative voice in his breast, yet would
not forsake her; but flying a little distance to show her the way, and
returning again and again, and calling to her with his wildest and
most piercing cries, urged her still to spread her wings and fly with
him to their distant home.
And in that sad, anxious way they would journey on to the inevitable
end, when a pair or family of carrion eagles would spy them from a
great distance--the two travellers left far behind by their fellows,
one flying, the other walking; and the first would be left to continue
the journey alone.
Since this appreciation was written a good many years ago I have seen
much of geese, or, as it might be put, have continued my relations
with them and have written about them too in my Adventures among Birds
(1913). In recent years it has become a custom of mine to frequent
Wells-next-the-Sea in October and November just to welcome the wild
geese that come in numbers annually to winter at that favoured spot.
Among the incidents related in that last book of mine about the wild
geese, there were two or three about the bird's noble and dignified
bearing and its extraordinary intelligence, and I wish here to return
to that subject just to tell yet one more goose story: only in this
instance it was about the domestic bird.
It happened that among the numerous letters I received from readers of
Birds and Man on its first appearance there was one which particularly
interested me, from an old gentleman, a retired schoolmaster in the
cathedral city of Wells. He was a delightful letter-writer, but
by-and-bye our correspondence ceased and I heard no more of him for
three or four years. Then I was at Wells, spending a few days looking
up and inquiring after old friends in the place, and remembering my
pleasant letter-writer I went to call on him. During our conversation
he told me that the chapter which had impressed him most in my book
was the one on the goose, especially all that related to the lofty
dignified bearing of the bird, its independent spirit and fearlessness
of its human masters, in which it differs so greatly from all other
domestic birds. He knew it well; he had been feelingly persuaded of
that proud spirit in the bird, and had greatly desired to tell me of
an adventure he had met with, but the incident reflected so
unfavourably on himself, as a humane and fair-minded or sportsmanlike
person, that he had refrained. However, now that I had come to see him
he would make a clean breast of it.
It happened that in January some winters ago, there was a very great
fall of snow in England, especially in the south and west. The snow
fell without intermission all day and all night, and on the following
morning Wells appeared half buried in it. He was then living with a
daughter who kept house for him in a cottage standing in its own
grounds on the outskirts of the town. On attempting to leave the house
he found they were shut in by the snow, which had banked itself
against the walls to the height of the eaves. Half an hour's vigorous
spade work enabled him to get out from the kitchen door into the open,
and the sun in a blue sky shining on a dazzling white and silent
world. But no milkman was going his rounds, and there would be no
baker nor butcher nor any other tradesman to call for orders. And
there were no provisions in the house! But the milk for breakfast was
the first thing needed, and so with a jug in his hand he went bravely
out to try and make his way to the milk shop which was not far off.
A wall and hedge bounded his front garden on one side, and this was
now entirely covered by an immense snowdrift, sloping up to a height
of about seven feet. It was only when he paused to look at this vast
snow heap in his garden that he caught sight of a goose, a very big
snow-white bird without a grey spot in its plumage, standing within a
few yards of him, about four feet from the ground. Its entire snowy
whiteness with snow for a background had prevented him from seeing it
until he looked directly at it. He stood still gazing in astonishment
and admiration at this noble bird, standing so motionless with its
head raised high that it was like the figure of a goose carved out of
some crystalline white stone and set up at that spot on the glittering
snowdrift. But it was no statue; it had living eyes which without the
least turning of the head watched him and every motion he made. Then
all at once the thought came into his head that here was something,
very good succulent food in fact, sent, he almost thought
providentially, to provision his house; for how easy it would be for
him as he passed the bird to throw himself suddenly upon and capture
it! It had belonged to some one, no doubt, but that great snowstorm
and the furious north-east wind had blown it far far from its native
place and it was lost to its owner for ever. Practically it was now a
wild bird free for him to take without any qualms and to nourish
himself on its flesh while the snow siege lasted. Standing there, jug
in hand, he thought it out, and then took a few steps towards the bird
in order to see if there was any sign of suspicion in it; but there
was none, only he could see that the goose without turning its head
was all the time regarding him out of the corner of one eye. Finally
he came to the conclusion that his best plan was to go for the milk
and on his return to set the jug down by the gate when coming in, then
to walk in a careless, unconcerned manner towards the door, taking no
notice of the goose until he got abreast of it, and then turn suddenly
and hurl himself upon it. Nothing could be easier; so away he went and
in about twenty minutes was back again with the milk, to find the bird
in the same place standing as before motionless in the same attitude.
It was not disturbed at his coming in at the gate, nor did it show the
slightest disposition to move when he walked towards it in his studied
careless manner. Then, when within three yards of it, came the supreme
moment, and wheeling suddenly round he hurled himself with violence
upon his victim, throwing out his arms to capture it, and so great was
the impulse he had given himself that he was buried to the ankles in
the drift. But before going into it, in that brief moment, the
fraction of a second, he saw what happened; just as his hands were
about to touch it the wings opened and the bird was lifted from its
stand and out of his reach as if by a miracle. In the drift he was
like a drowning man, swallowing snow into his lungs for water. For a
few dreadful moments he thought it was all over with him; then he
succeeded in struggling out and stood trembling and gasping and
choking, blinded with snow. By-and-bye he recovered and had a look
round, and lo! there stood his goose on the summit of the snow bank
about three yards from the spot where it had been! It was standing as
before, perfectly motionless, its long neck and head raised, and was
still in appearance the snow-white figure of a carved bird, only it
was more conspicuous and impressive now, being outlined against the
blue sky, and as before it was regarding him out of the corner of one
eye. He had never, he said, felt so ashamed of himself in his life! If
the bird had screamed and fled from him it would not have been so bad,
but there it had chosen to remain, as if despising his attempt at
harming it too much even to feel resentment. A most uncanny bird! it
seemed to him that it had divined his intention from the first and had
been prepared for his every movement; and now it appeared to him to be
saying mentally: "Have you got no more plans to capture me in your
clever brain, or have you quite given it up?"
Yes, he had quite, quite given it up!
And then the goose, seeing there were no more plans, quietly unfolded
its wings and rose from the snowdrift and flew away over the town and
the cathedral away on the further side, and towards the snow-covered
Mendips; he standing there watching it until it was lost to sight in
the pale sky.