abated thereby and the strong taste of the flesh in sundry wise amended.
If I should say that ganders grow also to be gelded, I suppose that some
will laugh me to scorn, neither have I tasted at any time of such a fowl
so served, yet have I heard it more than once to be used in the country,
where their geese are driven to the field like herds of cattle by a
gooseherd, a toy also no less to be marvelled at than the other. For, as
it is rare to hear of a gelded gander, so is it strange to me to see or
hear of geese to be led to the field like sheep; yet so it is, and their
gooseherd carrieth a rattle of paper or parchment with him when he goeth
about in the morning to gather his goslings together, the noise whereof
cometh no sooner to their ears than they fall to gaggling, and hasten to
go with him. If it happen that the gates be not yet open, or that none of
the house be stirring, it is ridiculous to see how they will peep under
the doors, and never leave creaking and gaggling till they be let out unto
him to overtake their fellows. With us where I dwell they are not kept in
this sort, nor in many other places, neither are they kept so much for
their bodies as their feathers. Some hold furthermore an opinion that in
over rank soils their dung doth so qualify the batableness of the soil
that their cattle is thereby kept from the garget, and sundry other
diseases, although some of them come to their ends now and then by licking
up of their feathers. I might here make mention of other fowls produced by
the industry of man, as between the pheasant cock and dunghill hen, or
between the pheasant and the ringdove, the peacock and the turkey hen, the
partridge and the pigeon; but, sith I have no more knowledge of these than
what I have gotten by mine ear, I will not meddle with them. Yet Cardan,
speaking of the second sort, doth affirm it to be a fowl of excellent
beauty. I would likewise intreat of other fowls which we repute unclean,
as ravens, crows, pies, choughs, rooks, kites, jays, ringtails, starlings,
woodspikes, woodnaws, etc.; but, sith they abound in all countries, though
peradventure most of all in England (by reason of our negligence), I shall
not need to spend any time in the rehearsal of them. Neither are our crows
and choughs cherished of purpose to catch up the worms that breed in our
soils (as Polydor supposeth), sith there are no uplandish towns but have
(or should have) nets of their own in store to catch them