A FEW WORDS ON PEN-LAND. 213 



fire " with hail shoot at any fowle.'' For this oflFence he paid £o to the lord. 

 " Any commoner might fish and fowle " in the fen with lawful nets, snares, 

 or other " engins " at proper times ; and eighteen fengraves were elected, to 

 enforce these rules. , 



A Lincolnshire gossard, with his long "driving-stick" over his shoulder, 

 tipped with a red rag at one end and a hook at the other, cried formerly, and 

 still continues to shout, " Lag 'um, lag 'um," as he slowly plods his weary 

 way, at the rate of a mile per hour, through the fens. 



The flock are said to be much afraid of the red rag ; but what did 



Mrs. Bury Palliser's ' Historic Devices, Badges, and War-cries,' p. 38, fig. 30. I quote the account, 

 and, by permission of Messrs. Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, am able to reproduce the illustration, 

 which refers to a curious habit of this bird) . 



" A Goose is here representing plucking a plant with its beak, with the motto Deficiam aut 

 perficiam (I will perish or succeed)." 



Pliny says of this bird : — " Their own greedie feeding is their bane ; for one while they will 

 eat untill they burst againe, another while kill themselves with straining their owne selves ; for' 

 if they chaunce to catch hold of a root with their bill, they will bite and pull so hard for to have 

 it, that many times they breaks their own necks withaU, before they leave their hold'" (Book x. 

 chap. 59). 



This is a strange, though ancient notion ; I wonder if any one ever saw a Goose which had 

 died from this cause. 



In England they did not appear to approve of the bird so well as did the iMarquis, if it is true 

 (as stated in the 'Daily Telegraph,' March 1, 1878) that the Heralds amerced and imprisoned a 

 wealthy citizen for having called an heraldic Swan a Goose. 



