THE BIRDS OP NORFOLK. 



ANSER FERUS, Steph. 

 GREY LAG GOOSE * 



Mr. Lubbock particularly mentions tbe neglect of 

 this county by tbe older writers on ISTatural History, 

 with the exception only of Sir Tbomas Browne. Lin- 

 colnsliire, Cambridgesliire, and Holderness, as lie says, 

 "were mentioned by all, but Norfolk, although, per- 

 haps richer than any of these, seemed consigned to 

 total oblivion." Even Drayton in his Polyolhion, 

 *' occupies pages in the enumeration of different species 

 of birds found in Lincolnshire, but dismisses poor 

 Norfolk with a passing intimation that the open country 

 around Brandon is admirably suited to hawking." It 

 is thus that the local naturalist, though with little 

 doubt in his own mind as to the fact, is unable to 

 substantiate his belief that the true Anser ferv^ — the 

 the Grey Lag or fen goose, as distinguished from the 

 bean or stubble goose — bred as regularly in former times 

 in the Fens of Norfolk, as it is known to have done 



* The old name of grey lag was resumed by Yarrell for this 

 species, in place of the inappropriate term of grey-legged goose, 

 the word "lag," according to that author, being "a modification 

 of the English word lake, the Latin lacus, or perhaps an abbrevia- 

 tion of the Italian lago." In a recent number of the " Ibis," how- 



B 



