driven to feed in the
fields, like flocks of sheep. There was an old proverb, "Who eats the
king's goose returns the feathers in a hundred years." This bird was
considered a great delicacy by the working classes and bourgeoisie. The
_rotisseurs_ (Fig. 94) had hardly anything in their shops but geese, and,
therefore, when they were united in a company, they received the name of
_oyers_, or _oyeurs_. The street in which they were established, with
their spits always loaded with juicy roasts, was called Rue des _Oues_
(geese), and this street, when it ceased to be frequented by the _oyers_,
became by corruption Rue Auxours.

[Illustration: Fig. 93.--Barnacle Geese.--Fac-simile of an Engraving on
Wood, from the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, folio, Basle, 1552.]

There is every reason for believing that the domestication of the wild
duck is of quite recent date. The attempt having succeeded, it was wished
to follow it up by the naturalisation in the poultry-yard of two other
sorts of aquatic birds, namely, the sheldrake (_tadorna_) and the moorhen,
but without success. Some attribute the introduction of turkeys into
France and Europe to Jacques Coeur, treasurer to Charles VII., whose
commercial connections with the East were very extensive; others assert
that it is due to King Rene, Count of Provence; but according to the best
authorities these birds were first brought into France in the time of
Francis I. by Admiral Philippe de Chabot, and Bruyerin Champier asserts
that they were not known until even later. It was at about the same period
that guinea-fowls were brought from the coast of Africa by Portuguese
merchants; and the travelling naturalist, Pierre Belon, who wrote in the
year 1555, asserts that in his time "they had already so multiplied in the
houses of the nobles that they had become quite common."

[Illustration: Fig. 94.--The Poultry-dealer.--Fac-simile of an Engraving
on Wood, after Cesare Vecellio.]

The pea-fowl played an important part in the chivalric banquets of the
Middle Ages (Fig. 95). According to old poets the flesh of this noble bird
is "food for the brave." A poet of the thirteenth century says, "that
thieves have as much taste for falsehood as a hungry man has for the flesh
of the peacock." In the fourteenth century poultry-yards were still
stocked with these birds; but the turkey and the pheasant gradually
replaced them, as their flesh was considered somewhat hard and stringy.
This is