SOME FACTS AND FICTIONS OF ZOOLOGY. 101 



opened one of the mussel-shells, and was " mair astonist than afore " 

 to find no fish therein, but a perfectly-shaped " f oule, smal and gret " 

 as corresponded to the "quantity of the shell." And once again 

 Boece draws the inference that the trees or wood on which the crea- 

 tures are found have nothing to do with the origin of the birds ; 

 and that the fowls are begotten of the "occeane see, quhilk," con- 

 cludes our author, "is the caus and production of mony wonderful 

 thingis." 



More than fifty years after the publication of Boece's " History," 

 old Gerard of London, the famous "master in chirurgerie" of his day, 

 gave an account of the barnacle-goose, and not only entered into 

 minute particulars of its growth and origin, but illustrated its manner 

 of production by means of the engraver's art of his day. Gerard's 

 "Herball," published in 1597, thus contains, among much that is curi- 

 ous in medical lore, a very quaint piece of zoological history. He tells 

 us that " in the north parts of Scotland, and the Hands adjacent, called 

 Orchades (Orkneys)," are found " certaine trees, whereon doe growe 

 certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet ; wherein are 

 conteined little living creatures : which shels in time of maturitie doe 

 open, and out of them grow those little living foules whom we call 

 Barnakles, in the north of England Brant Geese, and in Lancashire 

 tree Geese ; but the other that do fall upon the land, perish, and come 

 to nothing : thus much by the writings of others, and also from the 

 mouths of people of those parts, which may," concludes Gerard, " very 

 well accord with truth." 



Not content with heax*say evidence, however, Gerard relates what 

 his eyes saw and hands touched. He describes how on the coasts of a 

 certain " small Ilande in Lancashire called Pile of Foulders " (probably 

 Peel Island), the wreckage of ships is cast up by the waves, along with 

 the trunks and branches " of old and rotten trees." On these wooden 

 rejectamenta " a certaine spume or froth " grows, according to Gerard. 

 This spume " in time breedeth unto certaine shels, in shape like those 

 of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour." This 

 description, it may be remarked, clearly applies to the -barnacles them- 

 selves. Gerard then continues to point out how, when the shell is per- 

 fectly formed, it "gapeth open, and the first thing that appeereth is 

 the foresaid lace or string" the substance described by Gerard as 

 contained within the shell " next come the legs of the Birde hanging 

 out ; and as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at 

 length it is all come foorth, and hangeth only 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 foule, bigger then a Mallard, 

 and lesser than a Goose, having blacke legs and bill or beake, and 

 feathers blacke and white .... which the people of Lancashire call 

 by no other name then a tree Goose." 



Accompanying this description is the engraving of the bernicle-tree, 



