SOME FACTS AND FICTIONS OF ZOOLOGY. 99 



in its native waters, we shall observe a beautiful little series of 

 feathery plumes to wave backward and forward, and ever and anon 

 to be quickly withdrawn into the secure recesses of the shell. These 

 organs are the modified feet of the animal, which not only serve for 

 sweeping food-particles into the mouth, but act also as breathing- 

 organs. We may, therefore, find it a curious study to inquire through 

 what extraordinary transformation and confusion of ideas such an ani- 

 mal could be credited with giving origin to a veritable goose ; and the 

 investigation of the subject will afford a singularly apt illustration of 

 the ready manner in which the fable of one year or period becomes 

 transmitted and transformed into the secure and firm belief of the 

 next. 



We may begin our investigation by inquiring into some of the 

 opinions which were entertained on this subject and ventilated by 

 certain old writers. Between 1154 and 1189 Giraldus Cambrensis, in 

 a work entitled " Topograpbia Hiberniaa," written in Latin, remarks 

 concerning " many birds which are called Bernacm : against nature, 

 nature produces them in a most extraordinary way. They are like 

 marsh geese, but somewhat smaller. They are produced from fir- 

 timber tossed along the sea, and are at first like gum. Afterward they 

 hang down by their beaks, as if from a sea-weed attached to the tim- 

 ber, surrounded by shells, in order to grow more freely." Giraldus is 

 here evidently describing the barnacles themselves. He continues : 

 " Having thus, in process of time, been clothed with a strong coat of 

 feathers, they either fall into the water or fly freely away into the air. 

 They derive their food and growth from the sap of the wood or the 

 sea, by a secret and most wonderful process of alimentation. I have 

 frequently, with my own eyes, seen more than a thousand of these 

 small bodies of birds, hanging down on the seashore from one piece 

 of timber, inclosed in shells, and already formed." Here, again, our 

 author is speaking of the barnacles themselves, with which he natural- 

 ly confuses the geese, since he presumes the crustaceans are simply 

 geese in an undeveloped state. He further informs his readers that, 

 owing to their presumably marine origin, "bishops and clergymen in 

 some parts of Ireland do not scruple to dine off these birds at the time 

 of fasting, because they are not flesh, nor born of flesh," although, for 

 certain other and theological reasons, Giraldus disputes the legality of 

 this practice of the Hibernian clerics. 



In the year 1527 appeared " The Hy story and Croniclis of Scotland, 

 with the cosmography and dyscription thairof, compilit be the noble 

 Clerk Maister Hector Boece, Channon of Aberdene." Boece's "His- 

 tory " was written in Latin, the title we have just quoted being that 

 of the English version of the work (1540), which title further sets 

 forth that Boece's work was " Translatit laitly in our. vulgar and com- 

 moun langage be Maister Johne Bellenden, Archedene of Murray, 

 And Imprentit in Edinburgh, be me Thomas Davidson, prenter to the 



