114 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Mr. Harting, in his ' Ornithology of Shakespeare,' gives : — 



" The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding." 



Love's Labour Lost, Act I. Sc. 1. 



King, in his ' Art of Cookery,' has : — 



" So stubble-geese at Michaelmas are seen 

 Upon the spit ; next May produces green." 



The Goose would be an endless theme ; so we had better leave him 

 on the spit. Before I bid good-bye to the Grey Lag Goose, however, I 

 would say, as respects Mr. Skeat's solution of the word lag (' Ibis,' n. s. 

 vol. vi. 1870, p. 301), this appears to me to be the real notion. Truly it 

 "lagged behind" to "breed in our fens;" but lag, as I fancy, had refer- 

 ence to leg. " Lagged : imprisoned, apprehended, or transported for a crime. 

 From the old Norse, lagda, laid by the leg " ('Slang Dictionary,' p. 169, note). 

 The slang and provincial expressions of the lower orders are far older than 

 printed books ; and this is one. 



In the manor of Leake, Lincolnshire, this was the custom relating to 

 waifs and strays, and among them to Geese : — They were first taken to the fold 

 or pen, Avhere they must stay during " six suns," i. e. three risings and three 

 settings. Thence they passed to "the rout-piece," a grass-field. Here they 

 remained one month ; but sheep had to stop twelve months and one clay, and 

 could not be shorn. After the termination of the above periods they were 

 sold. My informant mentioned to me that one of the best mares his father 

 ever had was a "rout mare," i. e. obtained from the '■' rout-pieced In those 

 times men were known by their success in taking fowl; one, in particular, 

 was called "Billy Ducks " (pronounced "docks "). An old man, between 

 eighty and ninety, a fine specimen of a hearty fen-man at that age, mentioned 

 to me that he had assisted in catching Ruffs and Reeves and Plovers in nets 

 with stuffed decoys. The captured birds were made fat, as he said, with 

 boiled wheat, and then sent to market. 



