Note 1 — CHAP. VII.
Reading edition
: "And hereupon did Rome fall almost into the superstition of the Ægyptians that worship birds and beasts, for they henceforth kept a holy day which they call the goose's feast."—AUGUSTINE, Civitas Dei, &c. book ii. ch. 22: Englished by F.H. Icond. 1610.
2: This appears from a line of Lucretius:
"Romulidarum arcis servator candidus anser." De Rer. Nat. I. iv. 687.
3: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S Manners and Customs, &c., 2nd Ser. pl. 31, fig. 2, vol. i. p. 312; vol. ii. p. 227. Mr. Birch of the British Museum informs me that throughout the ritual or hermetic books of the ancient Egyptians a mystical notion is attached to the goose as one of the creatures into which the dead had to undergo a transmigration. That it was actually worshipped is attested by a sepulchral tablet of the 26th dynasty, about 700 B.C., in which it is figured standing on a small chapel over which are the hieroglyphic words, "The good goose greatly beloved;" and on the lower part of the tablet the dedicator makes an offering of fire and water to "Ammon and the Goose."—Revue Archæo., vol. ii. pl. 27.
4: HORAPOLLO, Hieroglyphica, lib. i. 23.
5: ÆLIAN, Nat. Hist., lib. v. c. 29, 30, 50. Ælian says that the Romans in recognition of the superior vigilance of the goose on the occasion of the assault on the Capitol, instituted a procession in the Forum in honour of the goose, whose watchfulness was incorruptible; but held an annual denunciation of the inferior fidelity of the dogs, which allowed themselves to be silenced by meat flung to them by the Gauls.—Nat. Hist. lib. xii. ch. xxxiii.