of the Genus hepas. 



343 



t 



is flesh ; but this bird has no such origin, therefore it is not flesh.' * 

 Another retorted on him by the following ingenious position : — * If a 

 man,' said he, * were disposed to eat part of Adam's thigh, he would not 

 be justified, I imagine ; because Adam was not born from a parent of 

 flesh.' f So universal, however, was this belief in the extraordinary origin 

 of this bird, that its supposed parent, the shell-fish, is called, by con- 

 chologists, at this day, iepas «nsifera, the goose-bearing lepas." 



A word may here be offered on the two specific epithets «nslfera and 

 flnatlfera. As the 7/epas was supposed to produce a goose, anslfera 

 (goose-bearing) would seem the fittest epithet j but anatifera (duck-bearing) 

 seems the one most frequently and almost invariably applied. Turton, 

 accordingly, in his translation of Linnaeus' s St/stema Natures y affixes to 

 the Z/epas «natifera, as its English name, " Duck bernacle." See 

 vol. iv. p. 169. of the translation mentioned. Professor Rennie, in his 

 recent edition of Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary y gives, under the head 

 " Bernacle goose," p. 31., a somewhat detailed account of the anserine 

 associations appertaining to the iepas anatifera j and notices most or all 

 of the old writers who have written on, reported on, or credited, so 



marvellous a matter. From 

 Gerarde's account, as 

 quoted by Professor Rennie, 

 we learn, that, in Gerarde's 

 time, Z/epas anatifera, or, at 

 least, some one species, was 

 not rare on the coast of 

 Lancashire; and also that the 

 bernacle, brant, or tree goose, 

 was there also so abundant, 

 " that one of the best is 

 bought for threepence." Dr. 

 Drummond, too, introduces 

 the Lepas anatifera, with the 

 appended, apparently well- 

 executed, figure ifig- "77.), 

 but essentially distinct in 

 its branched pedicel from 

 the figure given above, 

 into his excellent Letters to 

 a Young Naturalisty p. 162 

 — 165. From his account we 

 learn, what perhaps is not 

 stated with sufficient clear- 

 ness above, that the pedicel 

 is fleshy and contractile. 

 From Dr. Drummond's quo- 

 tation from Gerarde it appears that the Z/cpas anatifera, or some one 

 species, was, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, not rare on 

 the coast of the north of Scotland and of the Orcades. 



Of the Z>epas anatifera, a figure has been previously given (Vol. L 

 p. 29.), but grouped with genera and species of molluscous animals inhabiting 



* " Quicquid est caro ex carne communi naturae cursu gignitur; 

 Ast talem ortum Bernaculae non habent : 

 Non sunt igitur Bernaculae carnes." — Stanihurst. 

 f " Si quis enim ex primo parentis, carnei quidera licet de carne non 

 nati, femore coraedisset, eum a carnium esu non immunem arbitrarer." — 

 Cambrensis. 



z 4 



