THE BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



ANSER FERUS, Steph. 



GEEY LAG GOOSE.^ 



Mr. Lubbock particularly mentions the neglect of 

 this county by the older writers on Natural History, 

 with the exception only of Sir Thomas Browne. Lin- 

 colnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Holderness, as he 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 ferus — the 

 the Grey Lag or fen goose, as distinguished from the 

 bean or stubble goose — br,ed 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 Tarrell 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- 



