The belief that some wild geese, instead of being hatched from eggs, like other birds, grew on trees and rotten wood has never been surpassed as a specimen of ignorant credulity and persistent error.

There are two principal versions of this absurd notion. One is that certain trees, resembling willows, and growing always close to the sea, produced at the ends of their branches fruit in form like apples, and each containing the embryo of a goose, which, when the fruit was ripe, fell into the water and flew away. The other is that the geese were bred from a fungus growing on rotten timber floating at sea, and were first developed in the form of worms in the substance of the wood.

When and whence this improbable theory had its origin is uncertain. Aristotle does not mention it, and consequently Pliny and Ælian were deprived of the pleasure they would have felt in handing down to posterity, without investigation or correction, a statement so surprising. It is, comparatively, a modern myth; although we find that it was firmly established in the middle of the twelfth century, for Gerald de Barri, known in literature as Giraldus Cambrensis, mentions it in his 'Topographia HiberniÆ,' published in 1187. Giraldus, who was Archdeacon of Brecknock in the reign of Henry II., and tried hard, more than once, for the bishopric of St. David's, the functions of which he had temporarily administered without obtaining the title, was a vigorous and zealous reformer of Church abuses. Amongst the laxities of discipline against which he found it necessary to protest was the custom then prevailing of eating these Barnacle geese during Lent, under the plea that their flesh was not that of birds, but of fishes. He writes:—

"There are here many birds which are called BernacÆ, which nature produces in a manner contrary to nature, and very wonderful. They are like marsh-geese but smaller. They are produced from fir-timber tossed about at sea, and are at first like geese upon it. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks, as if from a sea-weed attached to the wood, and are enclosed in shells that they may grow the more freely. Having thus, in course of time, been clothed with a strong covering of feathers, they either fall into the water, or seek their liberty in the air by flight. The embryo geese derive their growth and nutriment from the moisture of the wood or of the sea, in a secret and most marvellous manner. I have seen with my own eyes more than a thousand minute bodies of these birds hanging from one piece of timber on the shore, enclosed in shells and already formed. Their eggs are not impregnated in coitu, like those of other birds, nor does the bird sit upon its eggs to hatch them, and in no corner of the world have they been known to build a nest. Hence the bishops and clergy in some parts of Ireland are in the habit of partaking of these birds on fast days, without scruple. But in doing so they are led into sin. For, if any one were to eat of the leg of our first parent, although he (Adam) was not born of flesh, that person could not be adjudged innocent of eating flesh."

This fable of the geese appears, however, to have been current at least a hundred years before Giraldus wrote, for Professor Max MÜller, who treats of it in one of his "Lectures on the Science of Language," amongst many interesting references there given, quotes a Cardinal of the eleventh century, Petrus Damianus, who clearly describes, that version of it which represents the birds as bursting, when fully fledged, from fruit resembling apples.

It is a curious fact that these Barnacle geese have troubled the priesthood of more than one creed as to the instructions they should give to the laity concerning the use of them as food. The Jews—all those, at least, who maintain a strict observance of the Hebrew Law—eat no meat but that of animals which have been slaughtered in a certain prescribed manner; and a doubt arose amongst them at the period we refer to, whether these geese should be killed as flesh or as fish. Professor Max MÜller cites Mordechai,[82] as asking whether these birds are fruits, fish, or flesh; that is, whether they must be killed in the Jewish way, as if they were flesh. Mordechai describes them as birds which grow on trees, and says, "the Rabbi Jehuda, of Worms (who died 1216) used to say that he had heard from his father, Rabbi Samuel, of Speyer (about 1150), that Rabbi Jacob Tham, of RamerÜ (who died 1171), the grandson of the great Rabbi Rashi (about 1140), had decided that they must be killed as flesh."

Pope Innocent III. took the same view; for at the Lateran Council, in 1215, he prohibited the eating of Barnacle geese during Lent. In 1277, Rabbi Izaak, of Corbeil, determined to be on the safe side, forbade altogether the eating of these birds by the Jews, "because they were neither flesh nor fish."

Michael Bernhard Valentine,[83] quoting Wormius, says that this question caused much perplexity and disputation amongst the doctors of the Sorbonne; but that they passed an ordinance that these geese should be classed as fishes, and not as birds; and he adds, that in consequence of this decision large numbers of these birds were annually sent to Paris from England and Scotland, for consumption in Lent. Sir Robert Sibbald[84] refers to this, and says that Normandy was the locality from which the French capital was reported to be principally supplied; but that in fact the greater number of these geese came from Holland. The date of this edict is not given.

Professor Max MÜller says that in Brittany, Barnacle geese are still allowed to be eaten on Fridays, and that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ferns may give permission to people out of his diocese to eat these birds at his table.

In Bombay, also, where fish is prohibited as food to some classes of the population, the priests call this goose a "sea-vegetable," under which name it is allowed to be eaten.

Various localities were mentioned as the breeding-places of these arboreal geese. Gervasius of Tilbury,[85] writing about 1211, describes the process of their generation in full detail, and says that great numbers of them grew in his time upon the young willow trees which abounded in the neighbourhood of the Abbey of Faversham, in the county of Kent, and within the Archiepiscopate of Canterbury. The bird was there commonly called the Barneta.

Hector Boethius, or Boece, the old Scottish historian, combats this version of the story. His work, written in Latin, in 1527, was translated into quaint Scottish in 1540, by John Bellenden, Archdeacon of Murray. In his fourteenth chapter, "Of the nature of claik geis, and of the syndry maner of thair procreatioun, and of the ile of Thule," he says:—

"Restis now to speik of the geis generit of the see namit clakis. Sum men belevis that thir clakis growis on treis be the nebbis. Bot thair opinioun is vane. And becaus the nature and procreatioun of thir clakis is strange we have maid na lytyll laubore and deligence to serche ye treuth and verite yairof, we have salit throw ye seis quhare thir clakis ar bred, and I fynd be gret experience, that the nature of the seis is mair relevant caus of thir procreatioun than ony uther thyng."

From the circumstances attending the finding of "ane gret tree that was brocht be alluvion and flux of the see to land, in secht of money pepyll besyde the castell of Petslego, in the yeir of God ane thousand iiii. hundred lxxxx, and of a see tangle hyngand full of mussill schellis," brought to him by "Maister Alexander Galloway, person of Kynkell," who knowing him to be "richt desirus of sic uncouth thingis came haistely with the said tangle," he arrives at the conclusion, by a process of reasoning highly satisfactory and convincing to himself, that,

"Be thir and mony othir resorcis and examplis we can not beleif that thir clakis ar producit be ony nature of treis or rutis thairof, but allanerly be the nature of the Oceane see, quhilk is the caus and production of mony wonderful thingis. And becaus the rude and ignorant pepyl saw oftymes the fruitis that fel of the treis (quhilkis stude neir the see) convertit within schort tyme in geis, thai belevit that thir geis grew apon the treis hingand be thair nebbis sic lik as appillis and uthir frutis hingis be thair stalkis, bot thair opinioun is nocht to be sustenit. For als sone as thir appillis or frutis fallis of the tre in the see flude thay grow first wormeetin. And be schort process of tyme are alterat in geis."

In describing the bird thus produced, Boethius declares that the male has a sharp, pointed beak, like the gallinaceous birds, but that in the female the beak is obtuse as in other geese and ducks.

According to other authors, this wonderful production of birds from living or dead timber was not confined to England and Scotland. Vincentius Bellovacensis[86] (1190-1264) in his 'Speculum NaturÆ,' xvii. 40, states that it took place in Germany, and Jacob de Vitriaco (who died 1244) mentions its occurrence in certain parts of Flanders.

Jonas Ramus gives a somewhat different version of the process as it occurs in Norway. He writes:[87] "It is said that a particular sort of geese is found in Nordland, which leave their seed on old trees, and stumps and blocks lying in the sea; and that from that seed there grows a shell fast to the trees, from which shell, as from an egg, by the heat of the sun, young geese are hatched, and afterwards grow up; which gave rise to the fable that geese grow upon trees."

But, strange to say, if any painstaking enquirer, wishing to investigate the matter for himself, went to a locality where it was said the phenomenon regularly occurred, he was sure to find that he had literally, "started on a wild-goose chase," and had come to the wrong place. This was the experience of Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., who complained that miracles will always flee farther and farther away; for when he was on a visit (about 1430) to King James I., of Scotland,[88] and enquired after the tree which he most eagerly desired to see, he was told that it grew much farther north, in the Orkney Islands.

Notwithstanding the suspicious fact that the prodigy receded like Will o' the Wisp, whenever it was persistently followed up, Sebastian Munster, who relates[89] the foregoing anecdote of Æneas Sylvius, appears to have entertained no doubt of the truth of the report, for he writes:—

"In Scotland there are trees which produce fruit, conglomerated of their leaves; and this fruit, when in due time it falls into the water beneath it, is endowed with new life, and is converted into a living bird, which they call the 'tree-goose.' This tree grows in the Island of Pomonia, which is not far from Scotland, towards the north. Several old cosmographers, especially Saxo Grammaticus, mention the tree, and it must not be regarded as fictitious, as some new writers suppose."

Julius CÆsar Scaliger[91] (1540) gives another reading of the legend, in which it is asserted that the leaves which fall from the tree into the water are converted into fishes, and those which fall upon the land become birds.

Thus this extraordinary belief held sway, and remained strong and invincible, although from time to time some man of sense and independent thought attempted to turn the tide of popular error. Albertus Magnus (who died 1280) showed its absurdity, and declared that he had seen the bird referred to lay its eggs and hatch them in the ordinary way. Roger Bacon (who died in 1294) also contradicted it, and Belon, in 1551, treated it with ridicule and contempt. Olaus Wormius[92] seems to have believed in it, though he wrote cautiously about it. Olaus Magnus (1553) mentions it, and apparently accepts it as a fact, occurring in the Orkneys, on the authority of "a Scotch historian who diligently sets down the secrets of things," and then dismisses it in three lines.

Passing over many other writers on the subject, we come to the time of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when (in 1597) "John Gerarde, Master in Chirurgerie, London," published his "Herball, or Generall Historie of Plants gathered by him," and in the last chapter thereof solemnly declared, that he had actually witnessed the transformation of "certaine shell fish" into Barnacle Geese, as follows.

Of the Goose tree, Barnacle tree, or the tree bearing Geese.

BritanicÆ ConchÆ anatiferÆ.

THE BREED OF BARNACLES.

¶ The Description.

Hauing trauelled from the Grasses growing in the bottome of the fenny waters, the Woods, and mountaines, euen vnto Libanus itselfe; and also the sea, and bowels of the same, wee are arriued at the end of our History; thinking it not impertinent to the conclusion of the same, to end with one of the maruels of this land (we may say of the World). The history whereof to set forth according to the worthinesse and raritie thereof, would not only require a large and peculiar volume, but also a deeper search into the bowels of Nature, then my intended purpose will suffer me to wade into, my sufficiencie also considered; leauing the History thereof rough hewen, vnto some excellent man, learned in the secrets of nature, to be both fined and refined; in the meane space take it as it falleth out, the naked and bare truth, though vnpolished. There are found in the North parts of Scotland and the Islands adjacent, called Orchades, certaine trees whereon do grow certaine shells of a white colour tending to russet, wherein are contained little liuing creatures: which shells in time of maturity doe open, and out of them grow those little liuing things, which falling into the water do become fowles, which we call Barnacles; in the North of England, brant Geese; and in Lancashire, tree Geese: but the other that do fall vpon the land perish and come to nothing. Thus much by the writings of others, and also from the mouthes of people of those parts, which may very well accord with truth.

But what our eies haue seene, and hands haue touched we shall declare. There is a small Island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships some whereof haue beene cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees, cast vp there likewise; whereon is found a certaine spume or froth that in time breedeth vnto certaine shells, in shape like those of the Muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour; wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely wouen as it were together, of a whitish colour, one end whereof is fastened vnto the inside of the shell, euen as the fish of Oisters and Muskles are: the other end is made fast vnto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and forme of a Bird: when it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, til at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill: in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a Mallard, and lesser than a Goose, hauing blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such manner as is our Magpie, called in some places a Pie-Annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree Goose: which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoyning do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire vnto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses.

Moreover, it should seeme that there is another sort hereof; the History of which is true, and of mine owne knowledge; for trauelling vpon the shore of our English coast betweene Douer and Rumney, I found the trunke of an old rotten tree, which (with some helpe that I procured by Fishermen's wiues that were there attending their husbands' returne from the sea) we drew out of the water vpon dry land; vpon this rotten tree I found growing many thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape like vnto puddings newly filled, before they be sodden, which were very cleere and shining; at the nether end whereof did grow a shell fish, fashioned somewhat like a small Muskle, but much whiter, resembling a shell fish that groweth vpon the rockes about Garnsey and Garsey, called a Lympit: many of these shells I brought with me to London, which after I had opened I found in them liuing things without forme or shape; in others which were neerer come to ripenesse I found liuing things that were very naked, in shape like a Bird: in others, the Birds couered with soft downe, the shell halfe open, and the Bird ready to fall out, which no doubt were the Fowles called Barnacles. I dare not absolutely auouch euery circumstance of the first part of this history, concerning the tree that beareth those buds aforesaid, but will leaue it to a further consideration; howbeit, that which I haue seene with mine eies, and handled with mine hands, I dare confidently auouch, and boldly put downe for verity. Now if any will object that this tree which I saw might be one of those before mentioned, which either by the waues of the sea or some violent wind had beene ouerturned as many other trees are; or that any trees falling into those seas about the Orchades, will of themselves bear the like Fowles, by reason of those seas and waters, these being so probable conjectures, and likely to be true, I may not without prejudice gainsay, or endeauour to confute.

¶ The Place.

The bordes and rotten plankes whereon are found these shels breeding the Barnakle, are taken vp in a small Island adioyning to Lancashire, halfe a mile from the main land, called the Pile of Foulders.

¶ The Time.

They spawn as it were in March and Aprill; the Geese are formed in May and June, and come to fulnesse of feathers in the moneth after.

And thus hauing through God's assistance discoursed somewhat at large of Grasses, Herbes, Shrubs, Trees, and Mosses, and certaine Excrescenses of the Earth, with other things moe, incident to the historie thereof, we conclude and end our present Volume, with this wonder of England. For the which God's name be euer honored and praised.

Gerard was probably a good botanist and herbalist; but Thomas Johnson, the editor of a subsequent issue of his book, tells us that

"He, out of a propense good will to the publique advancement of this knowledge, endeavoured to performe therein more than he could well accomplish, which was partly through want of sufficient learning; but," he adds, "let none blame him for these defects, seeing he was neither wanting in pains nor good will to performe what hee intended: and there are none so simple but know that heavie burthens are with most paines vndergone by the weakest men; and although there are many faults in the worke, yet iudge well of the Author; for, as a late writer well saith:—'To err and to be deceived is human, and he must seek solitude who wishes to live only with the perfect.'"

It is difficult to comply with the request to think well of one who, writing as an authority, deliberately promulgated, with an affectation of piety, that which he must have known to be untrue, and who was, moreover, a shameless plagiarist; for Gerard's ponderous book is little more than a translation of DodonÆus, whole chapters having been taken verbatim from that comparatively unread author without acknowledgment.

After this series of erroneous observations, self-delusion, and ignorant credulity, it is refreshing to turn to the pages of the two little thick quarto volumes of Gaspar Schott.[93] This learned Jesuit made himself acquainted with everything that had been written on the subject, and besides the authors I have referred to, quotes and compares the statements of Majolus, Abrahamus Ortelius, Hieronymus Cardanus, Eusebius, Nierembergius, Deusingius, Odoricus, Gerhardus de Vera, Ferdinand of Cordova, and many others. He then gives, firmly and clearly, his own opinion that the assertion that birds in Britain spring from the fruit or leaves of trees, or from wood, or from fungus, or from shells, is without foundation, and that neither reason, experience, nor authority tend to confirm it. He concedes that worms may be bred in rotting timber, and even that they may be of a kind that fly away on arriving at maturity (referring probably to caterpillars being developed into moths), but that birds should be thus generated, he says, is simply the repetition of a vulgar error, for not one of the authors whom he has examined has seen what they all affirm; nor are they able to bring forward a single eye-witness of it. He asks how it can be possible that animals so large and so highly-organised as these birds can grow from puny animalcules generated in putrid wood. He further declares that these British geese are hatched from eggs like other geese, which he considers proved by the testimony of Albertus Magnus, Gerhardus de Vera, and of Dutch seamen, who, in 1569, gave their written declaration that they had personally seen these birds sitting on their eggs, and hatching them, on the coasts of Nova Zembla.

In marked and disgraceful contrast with this careful and philosophical investigation and its author's just deductions from it, is 'A Relation concerning Barnacles by Sir Robert Moray, lately one of His Majesty's Council for the Kingdom of Scotland,' read before the Royal Society, and published in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' No. 137, January and February, 1677-8.

Describing "a cut of a large Firr-tree of about two and a half feet diameter, and nine or ten feet long," which he saw on the shore in the Western Islands of Scotland, and which had become so dry that many of the Barnacle shells with which it had been covered had been rubbed off, he says:—

"Only on the parts that lay next the ground there still hung multitudes of little Shells, having within them little Birds, perfectly shap'd, supposed to be Barnacles. The Shells hung very thick and close one by another, and were of different sizes. Of the colour and consistence of Muscle-Shells, and the sides and joynts of them joyned with such a kind of film as Muscle-Shells are, which serves them for a Hing to move upon, when they open and shut.... The Shells hang at the Tree by a Neck longer than the Shell, of a kind of Filmy substance, round, and hollow, and creased, not unlike the Wind-pipe of a chicken, spreading out broadest where it is fastened to the Tree, from which it seems to draw and convey the matter which serves for the growth and vegetation of the Shell and the little Bird within it. This Bird in every Shell that I opened, as well the least as the biggest, I found so curiously and compleatly formed, that there appeared nothing wanting as to internal parts, for making up a perfect Seafowl: every little part appearing so distinctly that the whole looked like a large Bird seen through a concave or diminishing glass, colour and feature being everywhere so clear and neat. The little Bill, like that of a Goose; the eyes marked; the Head, Neck, Breast, Wings, Tail, and Feet formed, the Feathers everywhere perfectly shap'd, and blackish coloured; and the Feet like those of other Water-fowl, to my best remembrance. All being dead and dry, I did not look after the internal parts of them. Nor did I ever see any of the little Birds alive, nor met with anybody that did. Only some credible persons have assured me they have seen some as big as their fist."

It seems almost incredible that little more than two hundred years ago this twaddle should not only have been laid before the highest representatives of science in the land, but that it should have been printed in their "Transactions" for the further delusion of posterity.

Ray, in his edition of Willughby's Ornithology, published in the same year as the above, contradicted the fallacy as strongly as Gaspar Schott; and (except that he incidentally admits the possibility of spontaneous generation in some of the lower animals, as insects and frogs) in language so similar that I think he must have had Schott's work before him when he wrote.

Aldrovandus[94] tells us that an Irish priest, named Octavianus, assured him with an oath on the Gospels that he had seen and handled the geese in their embryo condition; and he adds that he "would rather err with the majority than seem to pass censure on so many eminent writers who have believed the story."

In 1629 Count Maier (Michaelus Meyerus—these old authors when writing in Latin, latinized their names also) published a monograph 'On the Tree-bird'[95] in which he explains the process of its birth, and states that he opened a hundred of the goose-bearing shells and found the rudiments of the bird fully formed.

Now, let us turn from fiction to facts.

Almost every one is acquainted with at least one kind of the Barnacle shells which were supposed to enclose the embryo of a goose, namely the small white conical hillocks which are found, in tens of thousands, adhering to stones, rocks, and old timber such as the piles of piers, and may be seen affixed to the shells of oysters and mussels in any fishmonger's shop. The little animals which secrete and inhabit these shells belong to a sub-class and order of the Crustacea, called the Cirrhopoda, because their feet (poda), which in the crab and lobster terminate in claws, are modified into tufts of curled hairs (cirri), or feathers. When the animal is alive and active under water, a crater may be seen to open on the summit of the little shelly mountain, and, as if from the mouth of a miniature volcano, there issue from this aperture, from between two inner shells, the cirri in the form of a feathery hand, which clutches at the water within its reach, and is then quickly retracted within the shell. During this movement the hair-fringed fingers have filtered from the water and conveyed towards the mouth within the shell, for their owner's nutriment, some minute solid particles or animalcules, and this action of the casting-net alternately shot forth and retracted continues for hours incessantly, as the water flows over its resting-place. The animal can live for a long time out of water, and in some situations thus passes half its life. Under such circumstances, the shells, containing a reserve of moisture, remain firmly closed until the return of the tide brings a fresh supply of water and food. These are the "acorn-barnacles," the balani, commonly known in some localities as "chitters."

Barnacles of another kind are those furnished with a long stem, or peduncle, which Sir Robert Moray described as "round, hollow, and creased, and not unlike the wind-pipe of a chicken." The stem has, in fact, the ringed formation of the annelids, or worms. The shelly valves are thin, flat, and in shape somewhat like a mitre. They are composed of five pieces, two on each side, and one, a kind of rounded keel along the back of the valves, by which these are united. The shells are delicately tinted with lavender or pale blue varied with white, and the edges are frequently of a bright chrome yellow or orange colour.

It is not an uncommon occurrence for a large plank entirely covered with these "necked barnacles" to be found floating at sea and brought ashore for exhibition at some watering-place; and I have more than once sent portions of such planks to the Aquaria at Brighton, and the Crystal Palace.

It is most interesting to watch a dense mass of living cirripedes so closely packed together that not a speck of the surface of the wood is left uncovered by them; their fleshy stalks overhanging each other, and often attached in clusters to those of some larger individuals; their plumose casting-nets ever gathering in the food that comes within their reach, and carrying towards the mouth any solid particles suitable for their sustenance. How much of insoluble matter barnacles will eliminate from the water is shown by the rapidity with which they will render turbid sea water clear and transparent. The most common species of these "necked barnacles" bears the name of "Lepas anatifera," "the duck-bearing Lepas." It was so entitled by LinnÆus, in recognition of its having been connected with the fable, which, of course, met with no credit from him.

Fig. 39 represents the figure-head of a ship, partly covered with barnacles, which was picked up about thirty miles off Lowestoft on the 22nd of October, 1857. It was described in the Illustrated London News, and the proprietors of that paper have kindly given me a copy of the block from which its portrait was printed.

Others of the barnacles affix themselves to the bottoms of ships, or parasitically upon whales and sharks, and those of the latter kind often burrow deeply into the skin of their host. Fig. 40 is a portrait of a Coronula diadema taken from the nose of a whale stranded at Kintradwell, in the north of Scotland, in 1866, and sent to the late Mr. Frank Buckland. Growing on this Coronula are three of the curious eared barnacles, Conchoderma aurita; the Lepas aurita of LinnÆus. The species of the whale from which these Barnacles were taken was not mentioned, but it was probably the "hunch-backed" whale, Megaptera longimana, which is generally infested with this Coronula. This very illustrative specimen was, and I hope still is, in Mr. Buckland's Museum at South Kensington. It was described by him in Land and Water, of May 19th, 1866, and I am indebted to the proprietors of that paper for the accompanying portrait of it.

The young Barnacle when just extruded from the shell of its parent is a very different being from that which it will be in its mature condition. It begins its life in a form exactly like that of an entomostracous crustacean, and, like a Cyclops, has one large eye in the middle of its forehead. In this state it swims freely, and with great activity. It undergoes three moults, each time altering its figure, until at the third exuviation it has become enclosed in a bivalve shell, and has acquired a second eye. It is now ready to attach itself to its abiding-place; so, selecting its future residence, it presses itself against the wood, or whatever the substance may be, pours out from its two antennÆ a glutinous cement, which hardens in water, and thus fastens itself by the front of its head, is henceforth a fixture for life, and assumes the adult form in which most persons know it best.[97]

It is unnecessary for me to describe more minutely the anatomy of the Cirripedes; I have said enough to show the nature of the plumose appurtenances which, hanging from the dead shells, were supposed to be the feathers of a little bird within; but it is difficult to understand how any one could have seen in the natural occupant of the shell, "the little bill, like that of a goose, the eyes, head, neck, breast, wings, tail, and feet, like those of other water-fowl," so precisely and categorically detailed by Sir Robert Moray. As Pontoppidan, who denounced the whole story, as being "without the least foundation," very truly says, "One must take the force of imagination to help to make it look so!"

As to the origin of the myth, I venture to differ entirely from philologists who attribute it to "language," and "a similarity of names," for, although, as Professor Max MÜller observes in one of his lectures, "words without definite meanings are at the bottom of nearly all our philosophical and religious controversies," it certainly is not applicable in this instance. Every quotation here given shows that the mistake arose from the supposed resemblance of the plumes of the cirrhopod, and the feathers of a bird, and the fallacious deductions derived therefrom. The statements of Maier (p. 112), Gerard (p. 106), Sir Robert Moray (p. 110), &c., prove that this fanciful misconception sprang from erroneous observation. The love of the marvellous inherent in mankind, and especially prevalent in times of ignorance and superstition, favoured its reception and adoption, and I believe that it would have been as widely circulated, and have met with equal credence, if the names of the cirripede and of the goose that was supposed to be its offspring had been far more dissimilar than, at first, they really were.

Setting aside several ingenious and far-fetched derivations that have been proposed, I think we may safely regard the word "barnacle," as applied to the cirrhopod, as a corruption of pernacula, the diminutive of perna, a bivalve mollusk, so-called from the similarity in shape of its shell to that of a ham—pernacula being changed to bernacula. In some old Glossaries perna is actually spelt berna.

To arrive at the origin of the word "barnacle," or "bernicle," as applied to the goose, we must understand that this bird, Anser leucopsis, was formerly called the "brent," "brant," or "bran" goose, and was supposed to be identical with the species, Anser torquatus, which is now known by that name. The Scottish word for "goose" is "clake," or "clakis,"[98] and I think that the suggestion made long ago to Gesner[99] (1558), by his correspondent, Joannes Caius, is correct, that the word "barnacle" comes from "branclakis," or "barnclake," "the dark-coloured goose."

Professor Max MÜller is of the opinion that its Latin name may have been derived from HibernicÆ, HiberniculÆ, BerniculÆ, as it was against the Irish bishops that Geraldus wrote, but I must say that this does not commend itself to me; for the name Bernicula was not used in the early times to denote these birds. Giraldus himself described them as BernacÆ, but they were variously known, also, as Barliates, Bernestas, Barnetas, Barbates, etc.

I agree with Dr. John Hill,[100] that "the whole matter that gave origin to the story is that the 'shell-fish' (cirripedes), supposed to have this wonderful production usually adhere to old wood, and that they have a kind of fibres hanging out of them, which, in some degree, resemble feathers of some bird. From this slight origin arose the story that they contained real birds: what grew on trees people soon asserted to be the fruit of trees, and, from step to step, the story gained credit with the hearers," till, at length, Gerard had the audacity to say that he had witnessed the transformation.

The Barnacle Goose is only a winter visitor of Great Britain. It breeds in the far north, in Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, and Nova Zembla, and probably, also, along the shores of the White Sea. There are generally some specimens of this prettily-marked goose in the gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park, London; and they thrive there, and become very tame. In the months of December and January these geese may often be seen hanging for sale in poulterers' shops; and he who has tasted one well cooked may be pardoned if the suspicion cross his mind that the "monks of old," and "the bare-footed friars," as well as the laity, may not have been unwilling to sustain the fiction in order that they might conserve the privilege of having on their tables during the long fast of Lent so agreeable and succulent a "vegetable" or "fish" as a Barnacle Goose.

THE END.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

[42] Naturalis Historia, Lib. ix. cap. v.