But we must return to Berlin, in order to hear one more of Percival’s stories.  Passing a field, half a mile from his early home, he told an incident connected with it, and related to his favorite study of natural history.  The field had belonged to his father, who, besides being the physician of Berlin, indulged a taste for agriculture.  Just before the harvest season, it became palpable that this field, then waving with wheat, was depredated upon to a wasteful extent by some unknown subjects of the animal kingdom.  Having watched for the pilferers in vain by day, the proprietor resolved to mount guard by night, and accordingly ambushed himself in the invaded territory.  Near midnight, he saw his own flock of geese, hitherto considered so trustworthy, approach silently in single file, make their entry between the rails, and commence transferring the wheat-crop into their own crops, after a ravenous fashion.  Having eaten their fill, they re-formed their column of march, with a venerable gander at the head, and trudged silently homeward, cautiously followed by their owner, who noticed, that, on regaining his door-yard, they set up a vociferous cackle, such as he had repeatedly heard from them before at about the same hour.  It was a most evident attempt to establish an alibi; it was as much as to say, “If you miss any wheat, we didn’t take it; we are honest birds, and stay at home o’nights, Dr. Percival.”  The next morning, however, a general decapitation overtook the flock of feathered hypocrites.  “It was a curious instance of the domestic goose reverting to its wild habit of nocturnal feeding,” remarked my narrator, dwelling characteristically upon the natural-history aspect of the fact.

Percival was almost incapable of an irrelevancy.  The survey was the business in hand, and he rarely discoursed much of things disconnected with it, except, perhaps, when we were retracing our routes, or when the labors of the day were over.  Of poets and poetry he was not inclined to speak.  I never heard him quote a line, either his own or another’s, nor indulge in a single poetic observation concerning the objects which met us in our wanderings.  Indeed, he confessed that he no longer felt disposed to write verses, being satisfied that his productions were not acceptable to the prevailing taste; although he admitted that he composed a few stanzas occasionally, in order to make trial of some unusual measure or new language.  He told me that he had versified in thirteen languages; and I have heard from others that he had imitated all the Greek and German metres.