(A. N.)
[1] The meaning and derivation of this word lag had long been a puzzle until Skeat suggested (Ibis, 1870, p. 301) that it signified late, last, or slow, as in laggard, a loiterer, lagman, the last man, lagteeth, the posterior molar or “wisdom” teeth (as the last to appear), and lagclock, 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 mentioned by Rowley (Orn. Miscell., iii. 213), that the flocks of tame geese in Lincolnshire are urged on by their drivers with the cry of “lag’em, lag’em.”
[2] From the times of the Romans white geese have been held in great estimation, and hence, doubtless, they have been preferred as breeding stock, but the 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 many bird-keepers that a white feather is often produced in place of one of the natural colour that has been pulled out.
[3] In some English counties, especially Norfolk and Lincoln, it was no uncommon thing formerly for a man to keep a stock of a thousand geese, each of which might be reckoned to rear on an average seven goslings. The flocks were regularly taken to pasture and water, just as sheep are, and the man who tended them was called the gooseherd, corrupted into gozzerd. The birds were plucked five times in the year, and in autumn the flocks were driven to London or other large markets. They travelled at the rate of about a mile an hour, and would get over nearly 10 m. in the day. For further particulars the reader may be referred to Pennant’s British Zoology; Montagu’s Ornithological Dictionary; Latham’s General History of Birds; and Rowley’s Ornithological Miscellany (iii. 206-215), where some account also may be found of the goose-fatting at Strassburg.
[4] See Sclater and Salvin, Proc. Zool. Society (1876), pp. 361-369.
[5] The etymology of these two words is exceedingly obscure. The ordinary spelling bernicle seems to be wrong, if we may judge from the analogy of the French Bernache. In both words the e should be sounded as a.
[6] The old fable, perhaps still believed by the uneducated in some parts of the world, was that bernacle-geese were produced from the barnacles (Lepadidae) that grow on timber exposed to salt-water.
GOOSE (Game of), an ancient French game, said to have been derived from the Greeks, very popular at the close of the middle ages. It was played on a piece of card-board upon which was drawn a fantastic scroll, called the jardin de l’Oie (goose-garden), divided into 63 spaces marked with certain emblems, such as dice, an inn, a bridge, a labyrinth, &c. The emblem inscribed on 1 and 63, as well as every ninth space between, was a goose. The object was to land one’s counter in number 63, the number of spaces moved through being determined by throwing two dice. The counter was advanced or retired according to the space on which it was placed. For instance if it rested on the inn it must remain there until each adversary, of which there might be several, had played twice; if it rested on the death’s head the player must begin over again; if it went beyond 63 it must be retired a certain number of spaces. The game was usually played for a stake, and special fines were exacted for resting on certain spaces. At the end of the 18th century a variation of the game was called the jeu de la Révolution Française.