HARUW'ICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



1G9 



A GOSSIP ABOUT BAENACLES. 



stories so abouud- 

 iug in the writings 

 of eariy naturalists 

 — those pioneers 

 of truth, whose 

 strange mixture 

 of fact and iiction 

 shows such a 

 striving after the 

 real, combined with such an evi- 

 dent doubt of, yet lingering after, 

 chimeras, the existence of which 

 we in the present day can hardly 

 conceive,— one of the most curious 

 and apparently best-authenticated 

 is the story of the origin of the 

 Barnacle Goose. To most of my 

 readers I have no doubt ^this myth 

 is more or less familiar, but it is so remarkable, 

 from the amount of direct evidence in its support, 

 and so full of instructive warning to modern 

 observers, that I venture, even at the risk of 

 tiring them with a twice-told tale, to repeat it once 

 more. 



I will first give the fable as reported by an 

 eye-witness to what he relates, and I ask the reader 

 to observe that the account was written by no ordi- 

 nary man, but one accustomed to close observation, 

 and trained to note minute differences— in fact, by 

 our own countryman, Gerard, the father of English 

 botany : — 



"What our eyes have seen," says Gerard, in his 

 "Herbal," "and hands have touched, we shall de- 

 clare. There is a small island in Lancashire, called 

 the Pile of Elouuders, wherein are found broken 

 pieces of old'and bruised ships, some whereof have 

 been cast thither by shipwreck, and also the trunks 

 and bodies, with the branches, of old and rotten 

 trees, cast up there likewise ; whereon is found a 

 certain spume, or froth, that in time brcedeth unto 

 certain shells, in shape like those of the mussel, but 

 sharper pointed, and of a whitish'colour, wherein is 

 contained a thing in form like a lace of silk finely 

 No. lOi. 



woven, as it were, together, of a whitish colour; 

 one end whereof is fastened unto the inside of the 

 shell, even as the fish of oysters and mussels are ; 

 the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude 

 mass or lump, which in time cometh to the shape and 

 form of a bird. When it is perfectly formed the shell 

 gapeth wide open, and the first thing that appeareth 

 is the aforesaid lace or string ; next come the legs 

 of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater 

 it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it has 

 all come forth, and hangeth only by the bill. In 

 short space after it cometh to full maturity, and 

 falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and 

 groweth to a fowl bigger than a mallard and lesser 

 than a goose, having black legs, and bill or beak, 

 and feathers black and white, spotted in such man- 

 ner as our magpie, called in some places pie-aunet, 

 which the people of Lancashire call by no other 

 name than tree-goose; which place aforesaid, and 

 of all those places adjoining, do so much abound 

 therewith, that one of the best is bought for three- 

 pence. Eor the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it 

 please them to repair to me, and I shall satisfy them 

 by the testimony of gcod witnesses." * 



This is Gerard's account, published in 1636, and 

 evidently written in all sincerity ; but he was by no 

 means the first nor only witness to this remarkable 

 phenomenon. The story is very ancient, and has 

 been repeated by many authors, both British and 

 Continental. Sir Giraldus Carabrensis gives an ac- 

 count of it in his " Topographia Hibernite," written 

 in the twelfth century ; Michael Drayton refers to 

 itinhis"Polyolbiou":— 



The Barnacles with them, ivhich whertsoe'er they breed, — 

 On trees, or rotten ships, — yet to my fens for feed 

 Continually they come, and chief abode do make, 

 And very hardly forced my plenty to forsake. 



So does Baptista Porter, who lived in 1500. Count 

 Meyer devotes a volume to it ("Volucer Arborea ") ; 

 more than one bishop and many distinguished natu- 

 ralists also give their testimony. I believe about 

 the earliest published statements by an eye-witness 

 is that contained in the " Cosmographe and Descrip- 



* Gerard's " Herbal," p. 158;. 



