The strange part of the tale is that the goose
was only on the ship for about twenty-four hours ; and yet was so urged by her memory to rediscover her happy home afloat that she escaped with trouble, swam the long distance and refused to leave the vessel when found. Incidentally, this nostalgia in the bird says much for the traditional hospitality of the Navy. It is possible that the lights of the ship attracted her ; but the goose is in some respects semi-nocturnal or, at any rate, cre- puscular in habit ; and the lights, you would think, would repel rather than attract any bird of a wild origin. The ship steamed South the next day, so it is to be hoped that Polly will not again go in search of her sailor hosts. An experience, in some respects similar, was told me by Mr. Paynter, who did some valuable research work among birds on the Eastern coast. A young exiled gull, whose wings had been clipped, swam home, so far as I remember, all the way from the main- land to its home in one of the Fame Islands.
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