HARDWICKE'S SCIEN CE-GOSSIP. 



171 



In refuting the arboreal origin of the Barnacle 

 Goose, the author falls into an equally absurd error; 

 but he at least shows his desire to arrive at the 

 truth. He also confounds a species of Teredo which 

 had perforated the wood, and was exposed upon the 

 tree being cut, with the Barnacles attached to the 

 exterior, and evidently regards them as the same 

 animal in different stages of development. It is 

 ■worthy of remark that although the mode by which 



Afterward these are clothed with feathers, and at 

 last become living and flying fowl. Should this 

 appear to any one to be fabulous, we might adduce 

 the testimony not only of the whole people who 

 dwell on the coasts of England, Ireland, and Scot- 

 land, but also that of the illustrious historiographer 

 Gyraldus, who lias written so eloquently of the 

 history of Ireland, that the Barnacles are produced 

 in no other way. But since it is not very^safe to 



Fig. 104. 



' Goose-tree," and " Monstrum est marinum horribile vocaturque Ziphius, et deglubit phocam, nuam 

 interpretantur Germanice Seliihund."—¥xom Sebastian Munster, 1552. 



the young goose escapes from the shell is so graphi- 

 cally described, the beak always forming the last 

 point of attachment, both in Gerard's representa- 

 tion of the tree and all others that I have seen, the 

 young birds are shown with their heads and necks 

 out of the fruit or shell, and not their legs, which 

 should appear. first. Turner, the English ornitho- 

 logist, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, writes as follows : — 



" Nobody has ever seen the nest, or eg^ of the 

 Barnacle ; nor is this marvellous, inasmuch as it is 

 without parents, and is spontaneously generated in 

 the following manner. When at a certain time, an 

 old ship, a plank, or a pine mast rots in the sea, 

 something like fungus at first breaks out thereupon, 

 ■which at length puts on the manifest form of birds. 



trust to popular reports, and as I was, considering 

 the singularity of the thing, rather sceptical even 

 with respect to the testimony of Gyraldus, — whilst 

 I was thinking over the subject,— I consulted 

 Octavian, an Irish clergyman, whose strict integ- 

 rity gave me the utmost confidence in him, as to 

 whether he considered Gyraldus worthy to be 

 trusted in what he had written. This clergyman 

 then professed himself ready to take his oath upon 

 the Gospels, that what Gyraldus had recorded of 

 the generation of this bird was most true ; for he 

 himself had seen with his eyes, and also handled those 

 half-formed birds ; and he said farther, that if I 

 remained a couple of montlis longer in London, he 

 would have some sent to me." (Turner's " Avium 

 Prsecip. Hist,," art."Ansr,") As though all this were 



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