SUPPOSED ORIGIN OF " BARNACLE GEESE." 391 



extended through several ages, but still prevails 

 amongst the vulgar on all the shores of the Euro- 

 pean seas, and appears to have no other foundation 

 than a fancied resemblance in the plumose members 

 of the animal inhabitant to the wing of a bird. 



One circumstance, however, which serves in no 

 small degree to keep up this absurd error is, that in 

 some Catholic countries the above species of geese are 

 still conveniently considered as belonging to the finny 

 tribe, in order to extend the bill of fare in Lent, and 

 at other times of fasting and abstinence : " C'est un 

 gibier d'eau fort estime: une qualite que les pieux 

 gourmets savent apprecier c'est qu'on peut les manger 

 dans le temps d' abstinence religieuse*." 



" The bird which at Paris is called ' Macreuse,' 

 and in other parts of France ' Macroul,' the French 

 eat upon fast-days and all Lent, thinking it to be a 

 sort of fish, or a marine animal with cold blood, or 

 else a Barnacle generated either out of rotten or 

 corrupted wood floating upon the sea, or out of 

 certain fruits fallen into the water, and there meta- 

 morphosed into a bird, or else from a kind of sea- 

 shells adhering to old planks and ships 7 bottoms f." 



To show how far prejudice will sometimes carry men, 

 who, from station and education, should be fortified 

 against such delusion, we may as well add what Sir 

 Robert Moray has said upon the same subject, in a 

 grave communication to be found in the same work J. 



Having observed wood thrown up by the ocean on 



* Article BENACHE, Nouv. Diet, d'Hist. Nat. 



t Dr. Tancred Robinson, Phil. Trans, abridged, vol. ii. p. 850. 



J Page 849-50, No. 84. 



