AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 141 



and I think that these early autumnal flights of 

 Geese very seldom alight near Lilford ; my view of 

 the matter is that these birds on their southward 

 migration pass without halting up the valleys of the 

 Nen and the Welland, and eventually strike off 

 across country to that of the Severn. A few of this 

 species still breed in certain parts of the north 

 of Scotland, as many formerly did in the fens of some 

 of our eastern counties, but it is certainl) now 

 the rarest of our four British species of " grey " 

 Geese throughout the three kingdoms. The prin- 

 cipal breeding-haunts of the Grey Lag in Europe are 

 said to be Denmark, Southern Sweden, Finland, 

 Russia, and North Germany. I have met with this 

 bird in enormous numbers in February and March on 

 the marshes of the Guadalquivir, where it is the only 

 species of Goose that is in any way common. Its 

 flesh is worthless where better is to be had. Authors 

 are divided in opinion as to the origin of the term 

 " lag " as applied to this bird. Yarrell was inclined 

 to believe that it is either a modification of our word 

 laJae^ the latin lacus, or an abbreviation of the Italian 

 equivalent lago^ but Professor Skeat considers that 

 lag means late, last, or slow, and was applied to this 

 Goose on account of its being the only species of its 

 genus that lagged behind to breed in our fens ; this 

 suggestion appeared in 'The Ibis' for 1870, but 

 I quote from the 4th edition of Yarrell ; it is at 

 all events pretty certain that the word lag can hardly 

 be a corruption of leg, as has been suggested, as the 

 legs and feet of ninety-nine out of a hundred of these 

 birds are pale pink, in very old specimens occasionally 

 showing a tinge of orange. This is the largest 

 of our British Geese, and may always be distinguished 



