372 GOOSE 
of exceedingly wide range in the Old World, apparently breeding 
where suitable localities are to be found in most European countries 
from Lapland to Spain and Bulgaria. TEastwards 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 wild 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 (2wral 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, 1. 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, dagman, the last man, lagtecth, the posterior molar or 
“‘wisdom” teeth (as the latest to appear), and dagclock, 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 when 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.” 
1 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. 
