372 GOOSE 



of exceedingly wide i-ange 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 con- 

 dition 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 Avild Grey Lag 

 Goose ceased from breeding in England, but it certainly did so 

 towards the end of the last century, for Daniel, in or about 1802, 

 mentions {Piural Sports, iii. p. 242) his having once obtained two 

 broods in a season. In Scotland this Goose continues to breed 

 sparingly in several parts of the Highlands and on 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 domestica- 

 tion of this species, as Mr. Darwin remarks {Animals and Plants 

 under Domestication, i. p. 287), is doubtless 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 lose the browner and darker 

 tints of the wild bird, and are invariably more or less marked with 

 white — being often indeed wholly of that colour.^ The 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 



as in laggard, a loiterer, lagman, the last man, lagteeth, the posterior molar or 

 "wisdom" teeth (as the latest to appear), and lagclock, 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 but lagged behind the other wild species at 

 the season M'hen they betook themselves to their northern breeding-quarters. 

 In connexion with this word, however, must be noticed the curious fact men- 

 tioned by the late Mr. Rowley {Orn. Miscell. iii. p. 213), that to this day the 

 flocks of tame Geese in Lincolnshire are urged on by their drivers with the cry 

 of "Lag'em, Lag'em." 



^ From the time of the Romans white Geese have been held in great estima- 

 tion, and hence, doubtless, they have been preferred as breeding stock ; but the 

 detestable 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 

 bird-keepers that a white feather is often produced in place of one of the natural 

 colour that has been pulled out. 



