The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-01-10
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

reckon. before long some wise old | sander will bring an action against
 me for libeling the goose tribe unless make public apology for the article wrote recently In which I reflected
 on the bird family to which he be- longs.
 The reason I do this is because MT. Gander can make outsa- pretty good case. showing that geese have been libeled from time immemorial. hut wrongly so. for when the facts are known, geese are not half so silly as they have been painted: but are among
 the most teachable and tractable of all the feathered tribe and have many good things to their credit.
 can imagine the wise old bird
 barking back to history and citing the fact that cackling geese saved Rome and that for hundreds of years they have been held in esteem by Romans. and so some bird authorities say that to be called goose should be considered complimentary, for of all the birds the goose is probably
 the most intelligent. and instead of its being clumsy in it's appearance and | motions. ia a stately bird whether on | land or water.
 knew that the plumage of geese is very beautiful and abundant. The 1 Toulouse geese are our common gray l geese The Embdens are pure white with orange bill and bright blue eyes. ! The African geese have a black head with large black knob at the base of the bill; the neck long, snake ike. iight gray, with a dark stripe down the back; the wings and tail 1 are dark gray and there is a dewlap at the throat. The brown Chinese have also a black head and a
 black knob at the base of the bill, | but the neck is light brown with dullish yellow stripe down the neck, while the back is dark brown: breast and tail and wings grayish brown The white Chinese geese are shaped like the brown Chinese. but the knob | ssifA cfAt oA C VI oAiS r anu }lbe cE SS lfSH- blue.
 l On account of it's long legs, the goose
 makes better appearance when walking than does the duck which is beautiful only when seen on the water or in flight. as it's short legs, placed far back and far out at the | sides, makes it q most ungraceful ! pedestrian. The goose because of it's longer neck has a grace and a dignity which is foreign to the duck The ] beak of the goose is harder in tex | ture and is not flat like the duck S But one of the biggest surprises I ran | across in reading up on geese was to learn that that bird was a favorite with the ancient Greeks for the high ridge from the beak to the forehead
 because of Tits supposed resemblance
 to the much coveted Grecian nose. I
 | In ancient Greece maidens made
 pets of geese; and often there was such devotion between the bird and the giri that when the latter died her statue with that of the goose was carved on her burial tablet It might be well to remark here though birds
 make not unimportant appearance in the earliest written records of the human race. the pai1ter's brush has
 preserved their counterfeit present.
 ment for a still longer period
 Probably the most important is
 fragmentary fresco from the tomb at
 Medium, which was deposited some
 years ago, though in decaying con dition. in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Cairo. This Egyptian picture was said to date from the time of the third or fourth dynasty
 some 5000 years before the Christian era. In 1t were depi :ted with mar vicious fidelity. and thorough appre- ciation of form and coloring despite certain conventional treatment) the
 figures of six geese.
 sf
 Now comes the sirangest thing of all, for four of these figures can be rrhesitatingly referred to two species well known at the present day Darwin | | whose domestication was of very an cient date, and yet this great observer Of the change in the structure of birds and beasts. is authority for the state- ment that scarcely any other animal that has been tanned for so long a period and bred so largely in captivity has varied so little; the species spoken of having a wide range ia the old world, from Iapianu to ths
 north. to Bulgaria in the eass. and Spain m the west.
 The fresco spoken ,f as being pre- served in Cairo is the earliest on rec ord anywhere. but sa later ages the representations of birGs of one sort or another in Egyptian paintings and Eseulptures become countless. and the Ibassi-rilevf~ Assyrian monuments, though mostly belonging to a subse- quent period. are not without them. lyet to have been found on the incised stones. bones or worries of the pre- historic races Of Europe.
 But back to the little Grecian maid with her tomb and carving of a goose for 1t shows that the modern Goose 1 Girl' can trace her pedigree far back Lit she wants to. I read of a reported case of boys pet goose in New York which followed him around like dog Land vixen his playmate was taken sick and had to be confined went into a | decline until window was oDened