SeeAnatomical Memoirs of John Goodsir, F.R.S., edited by W. Turner, with Memoir by H. Lonsdale(2 vols., Edinburgh, 1868), in which Goodsir’s lectures, addresses and writings are epitomized;Proc. Roy. Soc.vol. iv. (1868);Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin.vol. ix. (1868).
SeeAnatomical Memoirs of John Goodsir, F.R.S., edited by W. Turner, with Memoir by H. Lonsdale(2 vols., Edinburgh, 1868), in which Goodsir’s lectures, addresses and writings are epitomized;Proc. Roy. Soc.vol. iv. (1868);Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin.vol. ix. (1868).
GOODWILL,in the law of property, a term of somewhat vague significance. It has been defined as every advantage which has been acquired in carrying on a business, whether connected with the premises in which the business has been carried on, or with the name of the firm by whom it has been conducted (Churtonv.Douglas, 1859, Johns, 174). Goodwill may be either professional or trade. Professional goodwill usually takes the form of the recommendation by a retiring professional man, doctor, solicitor, &c., to his clients of the successor or purchaser coupled generally with an undertaking not to compete with him. Trade goodwill varies with the nature of the business with which it is connected, but there are two rights which, whatever the nature of the business may be, are invariably associated with it, viz. the right of the purchaser to represent himself as the owner of the business, and the right to restrain competition. For the purposes of the Stamp Act, the goodwill of a business is property, and the proper duty must be paid on the conveyance of such. (See alsoPartnership;Patents.)
GOODWIN, JOHN(c.1594-1665), English Nonconformist divine, was born in Norfolk and educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he was elected fellow in 1617. He was vicar of St Stephen’s, Coleman Street, London, from 1633 to 1645, when he was ejected by parliament for his attacks on Presbyterianism, especially in hisΘεομαχία(1644). He thereupon established an independent congregation, and put his literary gifts at Oliver Cromwell’s service. In 1648 he justified the proceedings of the army against the parliament (“Pride’s Purge”) in a pamphletMight and Right Well Met, and in 1649 defended the proceedings against Charles I. (to whom he had offered spiritual advice) inὙβριστοδίκαι. At the Restoration this tract, with some that Milton had written to Monk in favour of a republic, was publicly burnt, and Goodwin was ordered into custody, though finally indemnified. He died in 1665. Among his other writings areAnti-Cavalierisme(1642), a translation of theStratagemata Satanaeof Giacomo Aconcio, the Elizabethan advocate of toleration, tracts against Fifth-Monarchy Men, Cromwell’s “Triers” and Baptists, andRedemption Redeemed, containing a thorough discussion of ... election, reprobation and the perseverance of the saints(1651, reprinted 1840). Goodwin’s strongly Arminian tendencies brought him into conflict with Robert Baillie, professor of divinity of Glasgow, George Kendall, the Calvinist prebendary of Exeter, and John Owen (q.v.), who replied toRedemption RedeemedinThe Doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance, paying a high tribute to his opponent’s learning and controversial skill. Goodwin answered all three in theTriumviri(1658). John Wesley in later days held him in much esteem and published an abridged edition of hisImputatio fidei, a work on justification that had originally appeared in 1642.
Lifeby T. Jackson (London, 1839).
Lifeby T. Jackson (London, 1839).
GOODWIN, NATHANIEL CARL(1857- ), American actor, was born in Boston on the 25th of July 1857. While clerk in a large shop he studied for the stage, and made his first appearance in 1873 in Boston in Stuart Robson’s company as the newsboy in Joseph Bradford’sLaw. He made an immediate success by his imitations of popular actors. A hit in the burlesqueBlack-eyed Susanled to his taking part in Rice and Goodwin’sEvangelinecompany. It was at this time that he married Eliza Weathersby (d. 1887), an English actress with whom he played in B. E. Woollf’sHobbies. It was not until 1889, however, that Nat Goodwin’s talent as a comedian of the “legitimate” type began to be recognized. From that time he appeared in a number of plays designed to display his drily humorous method, such as Brander Matthews’ and George H. Jessop’sA Gold Mine, Henry Guy Carleton’sA Gilded FoolandAmbition, Clyde Fitch’sNathan Hale, H. V. Esmond’sWhen we were Twenty-one, &c. Till 1903 he was associated in his performances with his third wife, the actress Maxine Elliott (b. 1873), whom he married in 1898; this marriage was dissolved in 1908.
GOODWIN, THOMAS(1600-1680), English Nonconformist divine, was born at Rollesby, Norfolk, on the 5th of October 1600, and was educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where in 1616 he graduated B.A. In 1619 he removed to Catharine Hall, where in 1620 he was elected fellow. In 1625 he was licensed a preacher of the university; and three years afterwards he became lecturer of Trinity Church, to the vicarage of which he was presented by the king in 1632. Worried by his bishop, who was a zealous adherent of Laud, he resigned all his preferments and left the university in 1634. He lived for some time in London, where in 1638 he married the daughter of an alderman; but in the following year he withdrew to Holland, and for some time was pastor of a small congregation of English merchants and refugees at Arnheim. Returning to London soon after Laud’s impeachment by the Long Parliament, he ministered for some years to theIndependent congregation meeting at Paved Alley Church, Lime Street, in the parish of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East, and rapidly rose to considerable eminence as a preacher; in 1643 he was chosen a member of the Westminster Assembly, and at once identified himself with the Congregational party, generally referred to in contemporary documents as “the dissenting brethren.” He frequently preached by appointment before the Commons, and in January 1650 his talents and learning were rewarded by the House with the presidentship of Magdalen College, Oxford, a post which he held until the Restoration. He rose into high favour with the protector, and was one of his intimate advisers, attending him on his death-bed. He was also a commissioner for the inventory of the Westminster Assembly, 1650, and for the approbation of preachers, 1653, and together with John Owen (q.v.) drew up an amended Westminster Confession in 1658. From 1660 until his death on the 23rd of February 1680 he lived in London, and devoted himself exclusively to theological study and to the pastoral charge of the Fetter Lane Independent Church.
The works published by Goodwin during his lifetime consist chiefly of sermons printed by order of the House of Commons; but he was also associated with Philip Nye and others in the preparation of theApologeticall Narration(1643). His collected writings, which include expositions of the Epistle to the Ephesians and of the Apocalypse, were published in five folio volumes between 1681 and 1704, and were reprinted in twelve 8vo volumes (Edin., 1861-1866). Characterized by abundant yet one-sided reading, remarkable at once for the depth and for the narrowness of their observation and spiritual experience, often admirably thorough in their workmanship, yet in style intolerably prolix—they fairly exemplify both the merits and the defects of the special school of religious thought to which they belong. Calamy’s estimate of Goodwin’s qualities may be quoted as both friendly and just. “He was a considerable scholar and an eminent divine, and had a very happy faculty in descanting upon Scripture so as to bring forth surprising remarks, which yet generally tended to illustration.” A memoir, derived from his own papers, by his son (Thomas Goodwin, “the younger,” 1650?-1716?, Independent minister at London and Pinner, and author of theHistory of the Reign of Henry V.) is prefixed to the fifth volume of his collected works; as a “patriarch and Atlas of Independency” he is also noticed by Anthony Wood in theAthenae Oxonienses. An amusing sketch, from Addison’s point of view, of the austere and somewhat fanatical president of Magdalen is preserved in No. 494 of theSpectator.
The works published by Goodwin during his lifetime consist chiefly of sermons printed by order of the House of Commons; but he was also associated with Philip Nye and others in the preparation of theApologeticall Narration(1643). His collected writings, which include expositions of the Epistle to the Ephesians and of the Apocalypse, were published in five folio volumes between 1681 and 1704, and were reprinted in twelve 8vo volumes (Edin., 1861-1866). Characterized by abundant yet one-sided reading, remarkable at once for the depth and for the narrowness of their observation and spiritual experience, often admirably thorough in their workmanship, yet in style intolerably prolix—they fairly exemplify both the merits and the defects of the special school of religious thought to which they belong. Calamy’s estimate of Goodwin’s qualities may be quoted as both friendly and just. “He was a considerable scholar and an eminent divine, and had a very happy faculty in descanting upon Scripture so as to bring forth surprising remarks, which yet generally tended to illustration.” A memoir, derived from his own papers, by his son (Thomas Goodwin, “the younger,” 1650?-1716?, Independent minister at London and Pinner, and author of theHistory of the Reign of Henry V.) is prefixed to the fifth volume of his collected works; as a “patriarch and Atlas of Independency” he is also noticed by Anthony Wood in theAthenae Oxonienses. An amusing sketch, from Addison’s point of view, of the austere and somewhat fanatical president of Magdalen is preserved in No. 494 of theSpectator.
GOODWIN, WILLIAM WATSON(1831- ), American classical scholar, was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 9th of May 1831. He graduated at Harvard in 1851, studied in Germany, was tutor in Greek at Harvard in 1856-1860, and Eliot professor of Greek there from 1860 until his resignation in 1901. He became an overseer of Harvard in 1903. In 1882-1883 he was the first director of the American School for Classical Studies at Athens. Goodwin edited thePanegyricusof Isocrates (1864) and DemosthenesOn The Crown(1901); and assisted in preparing the seventh edition of Liddell and Scott’sGreek-English Lexicon. He revised an English version by several writers ofPlutarch’s Morals(5 vols., 1871; 6th ed., 1889), and published the Greek text with literal English version of Aeschylus’Agamemnon(1906) for the Harvard production of that play in June 1906. As a teacher he did much to raise the tone of classical reading from that of a mechanical exercise to literary study. But his most important work was hisSyntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb(1860), of which the seventh revised edition appeared in 1877 and another (enlarged) in 1890. This was “based in part on Madvig and Krüger,” but, besides making accessible to American students the works of these continental grammarians, it presented original matter, including a “radical innovation in the classification of conditional sentences,” notably the “distinction between particular and general suppositions.” Goodwin’sGreek Grammar(elementary edition, 1870; enlarged 1879; revised and enlarged 1892) gradually superseded in most American schools theGrammarof Hadley and Allen. Both theMoods and Tensesand theGrammarin later editions are largely dependent on the theories of Gildersleeve for additions and changes. Goodwin also wrote a few elaborate syntactical studies, to be found inHarvard Studies in Classical Philology, the twelfth volume of which was dedicated to him upon the completion of fifty years as an alumnus of Harvard and forty-one years as Eliot professor.
GOODWIN SANDS,a dangerous line of shoals at the entrance to the Strait of Dover from the North Sea, about 6 m. from the Kent coast of England, from which they are separated by the anchorage of the Downs. For this they form a shelter. They are partly exposed at low water, but the sands are shifting, and in spite of lights and bell-buoys the Goodwins are frequently the scene of wrecks, while attempts to erect a lighthouse or beacon have failed. Tradition finds in the Goodwins the remnant of an island called Lomea, which belonged to Earl Godwine in the first half of the 11th century, and was afterwards submerged, when the funds devoted to its protection were diverted to build the church steeple at Tenterden (q.v.). Four lightships mark the limits of the sands, and also signal by rockets to the lifeboat stations on the coast when any vessel is in distress on the sands. Perhaps the most terrible catastrophe recorded here was the wreck of thirteen ships of war during a great storm in November 1703.
GOODWOOD,a mansion in the parish of Boxgrove, in the Chichester parliamentary division of Sussex, England, 4 m. N.E. of Chichester. It was built from designs of Sir William Chambers with additions by Wyatt, after the purchase of the property by the first duke of Richmond in 1720. The park is in a hilly district, and is enriched with magnificent trees of many varieties, including some huge cedars. In it is a building containing a Roman slab recording the construction of a temple to Minerva and Neptune at Chichester. There is mention of a British tributary prince named Cogidubnus, who perhaps served also as a Roman official. A reference to early Christianity in Britain has been erroneously read into this inscription. On the racecourse a famous annual meeting, dating from 1802, is held in July. The parish church of SS. Mary and Blaize, Boxgrove, is almost entirely a rich specimen of Early English work.
GOODYEAR, CHARLES(1800-1860), American inventor, was born at New Haven, Connecticut, on the 29th of December 1800, the son of Amasa Goodyear, an inventor (especially of farming implements) and a pioneer in the manufacture of hardware in America. The family removed to Naugatuck, Conn., when Charles was a boy; he worked in his father’s button factory and studied at home until 1816, when he apprenticed himself to a firm of hardware merchants in Philadelphia. In 1821 he returned to Connecticut and entered into a partnership with his father at Naugatuck, which continued till 1830, when it was terminated by business reverses. Already he was interested in an attempt to discover a method of treatment by which india-rubber could be made into merchandizable articles that would stand extremes of heat and cold. To the solution of this problem the next ten years of his life were devoted. With ceaseless energy and unwavering faith in the successful outcome of his labours, in the face of repeated failures and hampered by poverty, which several times led him to a debtor’s prison, he persevered in his endeavours. For a time he seemed to have succeeded with a treatment (or “cure”) of the rubber withaqua fortis. In 1836 he secured a contract for the manufacture by this process of mail bags for the U.S. government, but the rubber fabric was useless at high temperatures. In 1837 he met and worked with Nathaniel Hayward (1808-1865), who had been an employee of a rubber factory in Roxbury and had made experiments with sulphur mixed with rubber. Goodyear bought from Hayward the right to use this imperfect process. In 1839, by dropping on a hot stove some india-rubber mixed with sulphur, he discovered accidentally the process for the vulcanization of rubber. Two years more passed before he could find any one who had faith enough in his discovery to invest money in it. At last, in 1844, by which time he had perfected his process, his first patent was granted, and in the subsequent years more than sixty patents were granted to him for the application of his original process to various uses. Numerous infringements had to be fought in the courts, the decisive victory coming in 1852 in the case ofGoodyearv.Day, in which his rights were defended by Daniel Webster and opposed by Rufus Choate. In 1852 he went to England, where articles made under his patents had been displayed at the International Exhibition of 1851, but hewas unable to establish factories there. In France a company for the manufacture of vulcanized rubber by his process failed, and in December 1855 he was arrested and imprisoned for debt in Paris. Owing to the expense of the litigation in which he was engaged and to bad business management, he profited little from his inventions. He died in New York City on the 1st of July 1860. He wrote an account of his discovery entitledGum-Elastic and its Varieties(2 vols., New Haven, 1853-1855).
See also B. K. Peirce,Trials of an Inventor, Life and Discoveries of Charles Goodyear(New York, 1866); James Parton,Famous Americans of Recent Times(Boston, 1867); and Herbert L. Terry,India Rubber and its Manufacture(New York, 1907).
See also B. K. Peirce,Trials of an Inventor, Life and Discoveries of Charles Goodyear(New York, 1866); James Parton,Famous Americans of Recent Times(Boston, 1867); and Herbert L. Terry,India Rubber and its Manufacture(New York, 1907).
GOOGE, BARNABE(1540-1594), English poet, son of Robert Googe, recorder of Lincoln, was born on the 11th of June 1540 at Alvingham, Lincolnshire. He studied at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and at New College, Oxford, but does not seem to have taken a degree at either university. He afterwards removed to Staple’s Inn, and was attached to the household of his kinsman, Sir William Cecil. In 1563 he became a gentleman pensioner to Queen Elizabeth. He was absent in Spain when his poems were sent to the printer by a friend, L. Blundeston. Googe then gave his consent, and they appeared in 1563 asEglogs, Epytaphes, and Sonettes. There is extant a curious correspondence on the subject of his marriage with Mary Darrell, whose father refused Googe’s suit on the ground that she was bound by a previous contract. The matter was decided by the intervention of Sir William Cecil with Archbishop Parker, and the marriage took place in 1564 or 1565. Googe was provost-marshal of the court of Connaught, and some twenty letters of his in this capacity are preserved in the record office. He died in February 1594. He was an ardent Protestant, and his poetry is coloured by his religious and political views. In the third “Eglog,” for instance, he laments the decay of the old nobility and the rise of a new aristocracy of wealth, and he gives an indignant account of the sufferings of his co-religionists under Mary. The other eclogues deal with the sorrows of earthly love, leading up to a dialogue between Corydon and Cornix, in which the heavenly love is extolled. The volume includes epitaphs on Nicholas Grimald, John Bale and on Thomas Phaer, whose translation of Virgil Googe is uncritical enough to prefer to the versions of Surrey and of Gavin Douglas. A much more charming pastoral than any of those contained in this volume, “Phyllida was a fayer maid” (Tottel’s Miscellany) has been ascribed to Barnabe Googe. He was one of the earliest English pastoral poets, and the first who was inspired by Spanish romance, being considerably indebted to theDiana Enamoradaof Montemayor.
His other works include a translation from Marcellus Palingenius (said to be an anagram for Pietro Angelo Manzolli) of a satirical Latin poem,Zodiacus vitae(Venice, 1531?), in twelve books, under the title ofThe Zodyake of Life(1560);The Popish Kingdome, or reign of Antichrist(1570), translated from Thomas Kirchmayer or Naogeorgus;The Spiritual Husbandriefrom the same author, printed with the last;Foure Bookes of Husbandrie(1577), collected by Conradus Heresbachius; andThe Proverbes of ... Lopes de Mendoza(1579).
His other works include a translation from Marcellus Palingenius (said to be an anagram for Pietro Angelo Manzolli) of a satirical Latin poem,Zodiacus vitae(Venice, 1531?), in twelve books, under the title ofThe Zodyake of Life(1560);The Popish Kingdome, or reign of Antichrist(1570), translated from Thomas Kirchmayer or Naogeorgus;The Spiritual Husbandriefrom the same author, printed with the last;Foure Bookes of Husbandrie(1577), collected by Conradus Heresbachius; andThe Proverbes of ... Lopes de Mendoza(1579).
GOOLE,a market town and port in the Osgoldcross parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, at the confluence of the Don and the Ouse, 24 m. W. by S. from Hull, served by the North Eastern, Lancashire & Yorkshire, Great Central and Asholme joint railways. Pop. of urban district (1901) 16,576. The town owes its existence to the construction of the Knottingley canal in 1826 by the Aire and Calder Navigation Company, after which, in 1829, Goole was made a bonding port. Previously it had been an obscure hamlet. The port was administratively combined with that of Hull in 1885. It is 47 m. from the North Sea (mouth of the Humber), and a wide system of inland navigation opens from it. There are eight docks supplied with timber ponds, quays, warehouses and other accommodation. The depth of water is 21 or 22 ft. at high water, spring tides. Chief exports are coal, stone, woollen goods and machinery; imports, butter, fruit, indigo, logwood, timber and wool. Industries include the manufacture of alum, sugar, rope and agricultural instruments, and iron-founding. Ship-building is also carried on, and there is a large dry dock and a patent slip for repairing vessels. Passenger steamship services are worked in connexion with the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway to Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bruges, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and other north European ports. The handsome church of St John the Evangelist, with a lofty tower and spire, dates from 1844.
GOOSE(a common Teut. word, O. Eng.gós, pl.gés, Ger.Gans, O. Norsegás, from Aryan root,ghans, whence Sans.haṇsá, Lat.anser(forhanser), Gr.χήν, &c.), the general English name for a considerable number of birds, belonging to the familyAnatidaeof modern ornithologists, which are mostly larger than ducks and less than swans. Technically the word goose is reserved for the female, the male being called gander (A.-S.gandra).
The most important species of goose, and the type of the genusAnser, is undoubtedly that which is the origin of the well-known domestic race (seePoultry), theAnser ferusorA. cinereusof most naturalists, commonly called in English the grey or grey lag1goose, a bird of exceedingly wide range in the Old World, apparently breeding where suitable localities are to be found in most European countries from Lapland to Spain and Bulgaria. Eastwards it extends to China, but does not seem to be known in Japan. It is the only species indigenous to the British Islands, and in former days bred abundantly in the English Fen-country, where the young were caught in large numbers and kept in a more or less reclaimed condition with the vast flocks of tame-bred geese that at one time formed so valuable a property to the dwellers in and around the Fens. It is impossible to determine when the wild grey lag goose ceased from breeding in England, but it certainly did so towards the end of the 18th century, for Daniell mentions (Rural Sports, iii. 242) his having obtained two broods in one season. In Scotland this goose continues to breed sparingly in several parts of the Highlands and in certain of the Hebrides, the nests being generally placed in long heather, and the eggs seldom exceeding five or six in number. It is most likely the birds reared here that are from time to time obtained in England, for at the present day the grey lag goose, though once so numerous, is, and for many years has been, the rarest species of those that habitually resort to the British Islands. The domestication of this species, as Darwin remarks (Animals and Plants under Domestication, i. 287), is of very ancient date, and yet scarcely any other animal that has been tamed for so long a period, and bred so largely in captivity, has varied so little. It has increased greatly in size and fecundity, but almost the only change in plumage is that tame geese commonly lose the browner and darker tints of the wild bird, and are more or less marked with white—being often indeed wholly of that colour.2The most generally recognized breeds of domestic geese are those to which the distinctive names of Emden and Toulouse are applied; but a singular breed, said to have come from Sevastopol, was introduced into western Europe about the year 1856. In this the upper plumage is elongated, curled and spirally twisted, having their shaft transparent, and so thin that it often splits into fine filaments, which, remaining free for an inch or more, often coalesce again;3while the quills are aborted, so that the birds cannot fly.
The other British species of typical geese are the bean-goose (A. segetum), the pink-footed (A. brachyrhynchus) and the white-fronted (A. albifrons). On the continent of Europe, but not yet recognized as occurring in Britain, is a small form of the last (A. erythropus) which is known to breed in Lapland. All these, for the sake of discrimination, may be divided intotwogroups—(1) those having the “nail” at the tip of the bill white, or of a very pale flesh colour, and (2) those in which this “nail” is black. To the former belong the grey lag goose, as well asA. albifronsandA. erythropus, and to the latter the other two.A. albifronsandA. erythropus, which differ little but in size,—the last being not much bigger than a mallard (Anas boschas),—may be readily distinguished from the grey lag goose by their bright orange legs and their mouse-coloured upper wing-coverts, to say nothing of their very conspicuous white face and the broad black bars which cross the belly, though the last two characters are occasionally observable to some extent in the grey lag goose, which has the bill and legs flesh-coloured, and the upper wing-coverts of a bluish-grey. Of the second group, with the black “nail,”A. segetumhas the bill long, black at the base and orange in the middle; the feet are also orange, and the upper wing-coverts mouse-coloured, as inA. albifronsandA. erythropus, whileA. brachyrhynchushas the bill short, bright pink in the middle, and the feet also pink, the upper wing-coverts being nearly of the same bluish-grey as in the grey lag goose. Eastern Asia possesses inA. grandisa third species of this group, which chiefly differs fromA. segetumin its larger size. In North America there is only one species of typical goose, and that belongs to the white-“nailed” group. It very nearly resemblesA. albifrons, but is larger, and has been described as distinct under the name ofA. gambeli. Central Asia and India possess in the bar-headed goose (A. indicus) a bird easily distinguished from any of the foregoing by the character implied by its English name; but it is certainly somewhat abnormal, and, indeed, under the name ofEulabia, has been separated from the genusAnser, which has no other member indigenous to the Indian Region, nor any at all to the Ethiopian, Australian or Neotropical Regions.
America possesses by far the greatest wealth of Anserine forms. Beside others, presently to be mentioned, its northern portions are the home of all the species of snow-geese belonging to the genusChen. The first of these isC. hyperboreus, the snow-goose proper, a bird of large size, and when adult of a pure white, except the primaries, which are black. This has long been deemed a visitor to the Old World, and sometimes in considerable numbers, but the later discovery of a smaller form,C. albatus, scarcely differing except in size, throws some doubt on the older records, especially since examples which have been obtained in the British Islands undoubtedly belong to this lesser bird, and it would be satisfactory to have the occurrence in the Old World of the trueC. hyperboreusplaced on a surer footing. So nearly allied to the species last named as to have been often confounded with it, is the blue-winged goose,C. coerulescens, which is said never to attain a snowy plumage. Then we have a very small species, long ago described as distinct by Samuel Hearne, the Arctic traveller, but until 1861 discredited by ornithologists. Its distinctness has now been fully recognized, and it has received, somewhat unjustly, the name ofC. rossi. Its face is adorned with numerous papillae, whence it has been removed by Elliot to a separate genus,Exanthemops, and for the same reason it has long been known to the European residents in the fur countries as the “horned wavey”—the last word being a rendering of a native name,Wawa, which signifies goose. Finally, there appears to belong to this section, though it has been frequently referred to another (Chloephaga), and has also been made the type of a distinct genus (Philacte), the beautiful emperor goose,P. canagica, which is almost peculiar to the Aleutian Islands, though straying to the continent in winter, and may be recognized by the white edging of its remiges.
The southern portions of the New World are inhabited by about half a dozen species of geese not nearly akin to the foregoing, and separated as the genusChloephaga. The most noticeable of them are the rock or kelp goose,C. antarctica, and the upland goose,C. magellanica. In both of these the sexes are totally unlike in colour, but in others a greater similarity obtains.4Formerly erroneously associated with the birds of this group comes one which belongs to the northern hemisphere, and is common to the Old World as well as the New. It contains the geese which have received the common names of bernacles or brents,5and the scientific appellations ofBerniclaandBranta—for the use of either of which much may be said by nomenclaturists. All the species of this section are distinguished by their general dark sooty colour, relieved in some by white of greater or less purity, and by way of distinction from the members of the genusAnser, which are known as grey geese, are frequently called by fowlers black geese. Of these, the best known both in Europe and North America is the brent-goose—theAnas berniclaof Linnaeus, and theB. torquataof many modern writers—a truly marine bird, seldom (in Europe at least) quitting salt-water, and coming southwards in vast flocks towards autumn, frequenting bays and estuaries on the British coasts, where it lives chiefly on sea-grass (Zostera maritima). It is known to breed in Spitsbergen and in Greenland. A form which is by some ornithologists deemed a good species, and called by themB. nigricans, occurs chiefly on the Pacific coast of North America. In it the black of the neck, which in the common brent terminates just above the breast, extends over most of the lower parts. The true bernacle-goose,6theB. leucopsisof most authors, is but a casual visitor to North America, but is said to breed in Iceland, and occasionally in Norway. Its usualincunabula, however, still form one of the puzzles of the ornithologist, and the difficulty is not lessened by the fact that it will breed freely in semi-captivity, while the brent-goose will not. From the latter the bernacle-goose is easily distinguished by its larger size and white cheeks. Hutchins’s goose (B. Hutchinsi) seems to be its true representative in the New World. In this the face is dark, but a white crescentic or triangular patch extends from the throat on either side upwards behind the eye. Almost exactly similar in coloration to the last, but greatly superior in size, and possessing 18 rectrices, while all the foregoing have but 16, is the common wild goose of America,B. canadensis, which, for more than two centuries has been introduced into Europe, where it propagates so freely that it has been included by nearly all the ornithologists of this quarter of the globe as a member of its fauna. An allied form, by some deemed a species, isB. leucopareia, which ranges over the western part of North America, and, though having 18 rectrices, is distinguished by a white collar round the lower part of the neck. The most diverse species of this group of geese are the beautifulB. ruficollis, a native of north-eastern Asia, which occasionally strays to western Europe, and has been obtained more than once in Britain, and that which is peculiar to the Hawaian archipelago,B. sandvicensis.
The largest living goose is that called the Chinese, Guinea or swan-goose,Cygnopsis cygnoides, and this is the stock whence the domestic geese of several eastern countries have sprung. It may often be seen in English parks, and it is found to cross readily with the common tame goose, the offspring being fertile,and Blyth has said that these crosses are very abundant in India. The true home of the species is in eastern Siberia or Mongolia. It is distinguished by its long smooth neck, marked dorsally by a chocolate streak. The reclaimed form is usually distinguished by the knob at the base of the bill, but the evidence of many observers shows that this is not found in the wild race. Of this bird there is a perfectly white breed.
We have next to mention a very curious form,Cereopsis novae-hollandiae, which is peculiar to Australia, and is a more terrestrial type of goose than any other now existing. Its short, decurved bill and green cere give it a very peculiar expression, and its almost uniform grey plumage, bearing rounded black spots, is also remarkable. It bears captivity well, breeding in confinement, but is now seldom seen. It appears to have been formerly very abundant in many parts of Australia, from which it has of late been exterminated. Some of its peculiarities seem to have been still more exaggerated in a bird that is wholly extinct, theCnemiornis calcitransof New Zealand, the remains of which were described in full by Sir R. Owen in 1873 (Trans. Zool. Society, ix. 253). Among the first portions of this singular bird that were found were thetibiae, presenting an extraordinary development of thepatella, which, united with the shank-bone, gave rise to the generic name applied. For some time the affinity of the owner of this wonderful structure was in doubt, but all hesitation was dispelled by the discovery of a nearly perfect skeleton, now in the British Museum, which proved the bird to be a goose, of great size, and unable, from the shortness of its wings, to fly. In correlation with this loss of power may also be noted the dwindling of the keel of the sternum. Generally, however, its osteological characters point to an affinity toCereopsis, as was noticed by Dr Hector (Trans. New Zeal. Institute, vi. 76-84), who first determined its Anserine character.
Birds of the generaChenalopex(the Egyptian and Orinoco geese),Plectropterus,Sarcidiornis,Chlamydochenand some others, are commonly called geese. It seems uncertain whether they should be grouped with theAnserinae. The males of all, like those of the above-mentioned genusChloëphaga, appear to have that curious enlargement at the junction of the bronchial tubes and the trachea which is so characteristic of the ducks orAnatinae.
(A. N.)
1The meaning and derivation of this wordlaghad long been a puzzle until Skeat suggested (Ibis, 1870, p. 301) that it signified late, last, or slow, as inlaggard, a loiterer,lagman, the last man,lagteeth, the posterior molar or “wisdom” teeth (as the last to appear), andlagclock, a clock that is behind time. Thus the grey lag goose is the grey goose which in England when the name was given was not migratory butlaggedbehind the other wild species at the season when they betook themselves to their northern breeding-quarters. In connexion with this word, however, must be noticed the curious fact mentioned by Rowley (Orn. Miscell., iii. 213), that the flocks of tame geese in Lincolnshire are urged on by their drivers with the cry of “lag’em, lag’em.”2From the times of the Romans white geese have been held in great estimation, and hence, doubtless, they have been preferred as breeding stock, but the practice of plucking geese alive, continued for so many centuries, has not improbably also helped to perpetuate this variation, for it is well known to many bird-keepers that a white feather is often produced in place of one of the natural colour that has been pulled out.3In some English counties, especially Norfolk and Lincoln, it was no uncommon thing formerly for a man to keep a stock of a thousand geese, each of which might be reckoned to rear on an average seven goslings. The flocks were regularly taken to pasture and water, just as sheep are, and the man who tended them was called the gooseherd, corrupted into gozzerd. The birds were plucked five times in the year, and in autumn the flocks were driven to London or other large markets. They travelled at the rate of about a mile an hour, and would get over nearly 10 m. in the day. For further particulars the reader may be referred to Pennant’sBritish Zoology; Montagu’sOrnithological Dictionary; Latham’sGeneral History of Birds; and Rowley’sOrnithological Miscellany(iii. 206-215), where some account also may be found of the goose-fatting at Strassburg.4See Sclater and Salvin, Proc. Zool. Society (1876), pp. 361-369.5The etymology of these two words is exceedingly obscure. The ordinary spelling bernicle seems to be wrong, if we may judge from the analogy of the FrenchBernache. In both words theeshould be sounded asa.6The old fable, perhaps still believed by the uneducated in some parts of the world, was that bernacle-geese were produced from the barnacles (Lepadidae) that grow on timber exposed to salt-water.
1The meaning and derivation of this wordlaghad long been a puzzle until Skeat suggested (Ibis, 1870, p. 301) that it signified late, last, or slow, as inlaggard, a loiterer,lagman, the last man,lagteeth, the posterior molar or “wisdom” teeth (as the last to appear), andlagclock, a clock that is behind time. Thus the grey lag goose is the grey goose which in England when the name was given was not migratory butlaggedbehind the other wild species at the season when they betook themselves to their northern breeding-quarters. In connexion with this word, however, must be noticed the curious fact mentioned by Rowley (Orn. Miscell., iii. 213), that the flocks of tame geese in Lincolnshire are urged on by their drivers with the cry of “lag’em, lag’em.”
2From the times of the Romans white geese have been held in great estimation, and hence, doubtless, they have been preferred as breeding stock, but the practice of plucking geese alive, continued for so many centuries, has not improbably also helped to perpetuate this variation, for it is well known to many bird-keepers that a white feather is often produced in place of one of the natural colour that has been pulled out.
3In some English counties, especially Norfolk and Lincoln, it was no uncommon thing formerly for a man to keep a stock of a thousand geese, each of which might be reckoned to rear on an average seven goslings. The flocks were regularly taken to pasture and water, just as sheep are, and the man who tended them was called the gooseherd, corrupted into gozzerd. The birds were plucked five times in the year, and in autumn the flocks were driven to London or other large markets. They travelled at the rate of about a mile an hour, and would get over nearly 10 m. in the day. For further particulars the reader may be referred to Pennant’sBritish Zoology; Montagu’sOrnithological Dictionary; Latham’sGeneral History of Birds; and Rowley’sOrnithological Miscellany(iii. 206-215), where some account also may be found of the goose-fatting at Strassburg.
4See Sclater and Salvin, Proc. Zool. Society (1876), pp. 361-369.
5The etymology of these two words is exceedingly obscure. The ordinary spelling bernicle seems to be wrong, if we may judge from the analogy of the FrenchBernache. In both words theeshould be sounded asa.
6The old fable, perhaps still believed by the uneducated in some parts of the world, was that bernacle-geese were produced from the barnacles (Lepadidae) that grow on timber exposed to salt-water.
GOOSE(Game of), an ancient French game, said to have been derived from the Greeks, very popular at the close of the middle ages. It was played on a piece of card-board upon which was drawn a fantastic scroll, called thejardin de l’Oie(goose-garden), divided into 63 spaces marked with certain emblems, such as dice, an inn, a bridge, a labyrinth, &c. The emblem inscribed on 1 and 63, as well as every ninth space between, was a goose. The object was to land one’s counter in number 63, the number of spaces moved through being determined by throwing two dice. The counter was advanced or retired according to the space on which it was placed. For instance if it rested on the inn it must remain there until each adversary, of which there might be several, had played twice; if it rested on thedeath’s headthe player must begin over again; if it went beyond 63 it must be retired a certain number of spaces. The game was usually played for a stake, and special fines were exacted for resting on certain spaces. At the end of the 18th century a variation of the game was called thejeu de la Révolution Française.
GOOSEBERRY,Ribes Grossularia, a well-known fruit-bush of northern and central Europe, placed in the same genus of the natural order to which it gives name (Ribesiaceae) as the closely allied currants. It forms a distinct sectionGrossularia, the members of which differ from the true currents chiefly in their spinous stems, and in their flowers growing on short footstalks, solitary, or two or three together, instead of in racemes.
The wild gooseberry is a small, straggling bush, nearly resembling the cultivated plant,—the branches being thickly set with sharp spines, standing out singly or in diverging tufts of two or three from the bases of the short spurs or lateral leaf shoots, on which the bell-shaped flowers are produced, singly or in pairs, from the groups of rounded, deeply-crenated 3- or 5-lobed leaves. The fruit is smaller than in the garden kinds, but is often of good flavour; it is generally hairy, but in one variety smooth, constituting theR. Uva-crispaof writers; the colour is usually green, but plants are occasionally met with having deep purple berries. The gooseberry is indigenous in Europe and western Asia, growing naturally in alpine thickets and rocky woods in the lower country, from France eastward, perhaps as far as the Himalaya. In Britain it is often found in copses and hedgerows and about old ruins, but has been so long a plant of cultivation that it is difficult to decide upon its claim to a place in the native flora of the island. Common as it is now on some of the lower slopes of the Alps of Piedmont and Savoy, it is uncertain whether the Romans were acquainted with the gooseberry, though it may possibly be alluded to in a vague passage of Pliny: the hot summers of Italy, in ancient times as at present, would be unfavourable to its cultivation. Abundant in Germany and France, it does not appear to have been much grown there in the middle ages, though the wild fruit was held in some esteem medicinally for the cooling properties of its acid juice in fevers; while the old English name,Fea-berry, still surviving in some provincial dialects, indicates that it was similarly valued in Britain, where it was planted in gardens at a comparatively early period. William Turner describes the gooseberry in hisHerball, written about the middle of the 16th century, and a few years later it is mentioned in one of Thomas Tusser’s quaint rhymes as an ordinary object of garden culture. Improved varieties were probably first raised by the skilful gardeners of Holland, whose name for the fruit,Kruisbezie, may have been easily corrupted into the present English vernacular word.1Towards the end of the 18th century the gooseberry became a favourite object of cottage-horticulture, especially in Lancashire, where the working cotton-spinners have raised numerous varieties from seed, their efforts having been chiefly directed to increasing the size of the fruit. Of the many hundred sorts enumerated in recent horticultural works, few perhaps equal in flavour some of the older denizens of the fruit-garden, such as the “old rough red” and “hairy amber.” The climate of the British Islands seems peculiarly adapted to bring the gooseberry to perfection, and it may be grown successfully even in the most northern parts of Scotland; indeed, the flavour of the fruit is said to improve with increasing latitude. In Norway even, the bush flourishes in gardens on the west coast nearly up to the Arctic circle, and it is found wild as far north as 63°. The dry summers of the French and German plains are less suited to it, though it is grown in some hilly districts with tolerable success. The gooseberry in the south of England will grow well in cool situations, and may be sometimes seen in gardens near London flourishing under the partial shade of apple trees; but in the north it needs full exposure to the sun to bring the fruit to perfection. It will succeed in almost any soil, but prefers a rich loam or black alluvium, and, though naturally a plant of rather dry places, will do well in moist land, if drained.
The varieties are most easily propagated by cuttings planted in the autumn, which root rapidly, and in a few years form good fruit-bearing bushes. Much difference of opinion prevails regarding the mode of pruning this valuable shrub; it is probable that in different situations it may require varying treatment. The fruit being borne on the lateral spurs, and on the shoots of the last year, it is the usual practice to shorten the side branches in the winter, before the buds begin to expand; some reduce the longer leading shoots at the same time, while others prefer to nip off the ends of these in the summer while they are stillsucculent. When large fruit is desired, plenty of manure should be supplied to the roots, and the greater portion of the berries picked off while still small. If standards are desired, the gooseberry may be with advantage grafted or budded on stocks of some other species ofRibes,R. aureum, the ornamental golden currant of the flower garden, answering well for the purpose. The giant gooseberries of the Lancashire “fanciers” are obtained by the careful culture of varieties specially raised with this object, the growth being encouraged by abundant manuring, and the removal of all but a very few berries from each plant. Single gooseberries of nearly 2 oz. in weight have been occasionally exhibited; but the produce of such fanciful horticulture is generally insipid. The bushes at times suffer much from the ravages of the caterpillars of the gooseberry or magpie moth,Abraxas grossulariata, which often strip the branches of leaves in the early summer, if not destroyed before the mischief is accomplished. The most effectual way of getting rid of this pretty but destructive insect is to look over each bush carefully, and pick off the larvae by hand; when larger they may be shaken off by striking the branches, but by that time the harm is generally done—the eggs are laid on the leaves of the previous season. Equally annoying in some years is the smaller larva of the V-moth,Halias vanaria, which often appears in great numbers, and is not so readily removed. The gooseberry is sometimes attacked by the grub of the gooseberry sawfly,Nematus ribesii, of which several broods appear in the course of the spring and summer, and are very destructive. The grubs bury themselves in the ground to pass into the pupal state; the first brood of flies, hatched just as the bushes are coming into leaf in the spring, lay their eggs on the lower side of the leaves, where the small greenish larvae soon after emerge. For the destruction of the first broods it has been recommended to syringe the bushes with tar-water; perhaps a very weak solution of carbolic acid might prove more effective. The powdered root of white hellebore is said to destroy both this grub and the caterpillars of the gooseberry moth and V-moth; infusion of foxglove, and tobacco-water, are likewise tried by some growers. If the fallen leaves are carefully removed from the ground in the autumn and burnt, and the surface of the soil turned over with the fork or spade, most eggs and chrysalids will be destroyed.
The gooseberry was introduced into the United States by the early settlers, and in some parts of New England large quantities of the green fruit are produced and sold for culinary use in the towns; but the excessive heat of the American summer is not adapted for the healthy maturation of the berries, especially of the English varieties. Perhaps if some of these, or those raised in the country, could be crossed with one of the indigenous species, kinds might be obtained better fitted for American conditions of culture, although the gooseberry does not readily hybridize. The attacks of the American gooseberry mildew have largely contributed to the failure of the crop in America.
Occasionally the gooseberry is attacked by the fungus till recently calledAecidium Grossulariae, which forms little cups with white torn edges clustered together on reddish spots on the leaves or fruits (fig. 1). It has recently been discovered that the spores contained in these cups will not reproduce the disease on the gooseberry, but infect species ofCarex(sedges) on which they produce a fungus of a totally different appearance. This stage in the life-history of the parasite gives its name to the whole fungus, so that it is now known asPuccinia Pringsheimiana. Bothuredosporesandteleutosporesare formed on the sedge, and the latter live through the winter and produce the disease on the gooseberry in the succeeding year. In cases where the disease proves troublesome the sedges in the neighbourhood should be destroyed.
A much more prevalent disease is that caused byMicrosphaeria Grossulariae. This is a mildew growing on the surface of the leaf and sending suckers into the epidermis. The white mycelium gives the leaves of the plant the appearance of having been whitewashed (fig. 2). Numerous white spores are produced in the summer which are able to germinate immediately, and later small blackish fruits (perithecia) are produced that pass uninjured through the winter liberating the spores they contain in the spring, which infect the young developing leaves of the bush. In bad cases the plants are greatly injured but frequently little harm is done. Attacked plants should be sprayed with potassium sulphide.
An allied fungus,Sphaerotheca mors-uvae, of much greater virulence, has recently appeared in England, causing the disease known as “American gooseberry mildew” (fig. 3A). In the main the mode of attack is similar to that of the last-mentioned, but not only are the leaves attacked, but the tips of the young shoots and the fruits become covered by the cobweb-like mycelium, the attack frequently resulting in the death of the shoots and the destruction of the fruits. After atime the mycelium becomes rusty brown and produces the winter form of the fungus. Through the winter the shoots are covered thickly with the brown mycelium and in the spring the spores contained in the perithecia germinate and start the infection anew, as in the case of the European mildew. This fungus has recently been the subject of legislation, and when it appears in a district strong repressive measures are called for. In bad cases the attacked bushes should be destroyed, while in milder attacks frequent spraying with potassium sulphide and the pruning off and immediate destruction by fire of all the young shoots showing the mildew should be resorted to.
The gooseberry, when ripe, yields a fine wine by the fermentation of the juice with water and sugar, the resulting sparkling liquor retaining much of the flavour of the fruit. By similarly treating the juice of the green fruit, picked just before it ripens, an effervescing wine is produced, nearly resembling some kinds of champagne, and, when skilfully prepared, far superior to much of the liquor sold under that name. Brandy has been made from ripe gooseberries by distillation; by exposing the juice with sugar to the acetous fermentation a good vinegar may be obtained. The gooseberry, when perfectly ripe, contains a large quantity of sugar, most abundant in the red and amber varieties; in the former it amounts to from 6 to upwards of 8%. The acidity of the fruit is chiefly due to malic acid.
Several other species of the sub-genus produce edible fruit, though none have as yet been brought under economic culture. Among them may be noticedR. oxyacanthoidesandR. Cynosbati, abundant in Canada and the northern parts of the United States, andR. gracile, common along the Alleghany range. The group is a widely distributed one in the north temperate zone,—one species is found in Europe extending to the Caucasus and North Africa (Atlas Mountains), five occur in Asia and nineteen in North America, the range extending southwards to Mexico and Guatemala.