But the whole economy of geese-feeding[1095] has been transmitted to us; in the first place, the birds usually preferred were those most remarkable for their size and whiteness.[1096] The ancients esteemed the variegated, or spotted, as of inferior value. The same rule applied to fowls. The chenoboscion,[1097] or enclosure in which the geese were kept, was commonly situated near ponds or freshes,[1098] abounding with rich grass and aquatic plants. Geese, it was observed, are not nice in the article of food, but devour eagerly nearly all kinds of plants, though the chick-pea, and the couch-grass, the laurel and the laurel-rose,[1099] were by the ancients supposed to be hurtful to them. Of their eggs some were hatched by hens, but such as were designed to be sitten on by the goose herself, (who, during the period of incubation[1100] was fed on barley steeped in water,) were marked by writing or otherwise, to distinguish them from the eggs of their neighbours, which it was thought she would not be at the pains to hatch. For the first ten days after they had broken the shell the young goslings were kept within-doors, where they were fed on wheat steeped in water, _polenta_ a preparation of barley-meal dried at the fire, and chopped cresses. This period over, they were driven out to feed and afterwards to water; they who tended them taking great care that they should not be stung by nettles, or pricked by thorns, or swallow the hair[1101] of pigs or kids, which they imagined to be fatal to them. ----- Footnote 1096: Geop. xiv. 22. Varro. iii. 10. Colum. viii. 14. Footnote 1097: Poll. ix. 16. Heresbach. De Re Rust. lib. iv. p. 285. a. Footnote 1098: Cf. Pallad. i. 30. Plin. x. 79. Plaut. Trucul. ii. 1. 41. Footnote 1099: Ælian. De Nat. Anim. v. 29. This ingenious writer, anxious to remove from geese the reputation of folly, relates that, when traversing Mount Taurus, conscious of their disposition to cackling, they carry stones in their bills, and thus frequently escape the eagles which inhabit that lofty ridge of mountains. This the poet Phile undertakes to confirm in verse:— Λίθον δὲ τῷ στόματι μὴ κλάγξῃ στέγων Ὅνπερ καλοῦσι Ταῦρον, ἀμείβει πάγον Τοὺς ἀετοὺς γὰρ φασὶ τοὺς χηνοσκόπους, Ἐκεῖσε δεινῶς ἐλλοχᾷν πρὸ τοῦ ψύχους. Iamb. De Animal. Proprietat. c. 15. p. 62. Footnote 1100: Which according to Aristotle was thirty days.—-Hist. Anim. vii. 6. Footnote 1101: Pallad. i. 30. Cavendum est etiam, ne pulli eorum setas glutiant. -----