■24 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 201. 



there protrudes a bunch of curling and fringe-like 

 cirrhi, by the agitation of which it attracts and 

 collects its food. These cirrhi so much resemble 

 feathers, as to have suggested the leading idea of 

 a bird's tail : and hence the construction of the 

 remainder of the fable, which is thus given with 

 grave minuteness in The Herhal, or General His- 

 torie of Plants, gathered by John Gerarde, Master 

 in Chirurgerie : London, 1597 : 



" What our eyes have seen, and our hands have 

 touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in 

 Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are 

 found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some 

 -whereof have been cast thither by shipwreck ; and also 

 the trunks or bodies, with the branches of old and 

 ■rotten trees, cast up there likewise, whereon is found 

 a certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth unto 

 ■certain shells, in shape like tliose of a mussel, but 

 -sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour ; wherein is 

 contained a thing in form like a lace of silk finely 

 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 open, 

 and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid 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 is 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 gatherelh 

 feathers, and groweth to a fowl, bigger than a mallard, 

 and lesser than a goose ; having black legs, and a bill 

 or beak, and feathers black and white, spotted in such 

 manner as our magpie, called in some places a Pie- 

 Annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other 

 name than a tree-goose ; which place aforesaid, and all 

 those parts adjacent, do so much abound therewith, 

 that one of the best may be bought for threepence. 

 For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them 

 to repair unto me, and I shall satisfy them by the testi- 

 mony of credible witnesses." — Page 1391. 



Gerarde, who is doubtless Butler's authority, 

 says elsewhere, that " in the north parts of Scot- 

 land, and the islands called Orcades," there are 

 certain trees whereon these tree-geese and barna- 

 cles abound. 



The conversion of the fish into a bird, however 

 fabulous, would be scarcely more astonishing than 

 the metamorphosis which it actually undergoes — 

 the young of the little animal having no feature to 

 identify it with its final development. In its early 

 stage (I quote from Carpenter's Physiology, vol. i. 

 p. 52.) it has a form not unlike that of the crab, 

 " possessing eyes and powers of free motion ; but 

 afterwards, becoming fixed to one spot for the re- 

 mainder of its life, it loses its eyes and forms a 

 shell, which, though composed of various pieces, 

 has nothing in common with the jointed shell of 

 the crab." 



Though Porta wrote at Naples, the story has 

 reference to Scotland; and the tradition is evi- 

 dently northern, and local. As to Speriend's 

 Query, What could give rise to so absurd a story ? 

 it doubtless took its origin in the similarity of the 

 tentacles of the fish to feathers of a bird. But I 

 would add the farther Query, whether the ready 

 acceptance and general credence given to so ob- 

 vious a fable, may not have been derived from 

 giving too literal a construction to the text of the 

 passage in the first chapter of Genesis : 



" And God said. Let the tvaters bring forth ahundanthj 

 the moving creature that hath life, and the fowl that 

 may fly in the open firmament of heaven ? " 



J. Emerson Tennent. 



Drayton (1613) in his Poly-olbion, iii., in con- 

 nexion with the river Dee, speaks of — 

 " Th' anatomised fish, and fowls from planchers sprung." 



to which a note is appended in Southey's edition, 

 p. 609., that such fowls were " bajmades, a bird 

 breeding upon old ships." In the Entertaining 

 Library, " Habits of Birds," pp. 363—379., the 

 whole story of this extraordinary instance of igno- 

 rance in natural history is amply developed. The 

 barnacle shells which I once saw in a sea-port, 

 attached to a vessel just arrived from the Medi- 

 tei'ranean, had the brilliant appearance, at a dis- 

 tance, of flowers in bloom * ; the foot of the 

 Lepas anatifera (Linna3us) appearing to me like 

 the stalk of a plant growing from the ship's side : 

 the shell had the semblance of a calyx, and the 

 flower consisted of the fingers (tentacula) of the 

 shell-fish, " of which twelve project in an elegant 

 curve, and are used by it for making prey of small 

 fish." The very ancient error was to mistake the 

 foot of the shell-fish for the neck of a goose, the 

 shell for its head, and the tentacula for a tuft of 

 feathers. As to the body, non est inventus. The 

 Barnacle Goose is a well-known bird : and these 

 shell-fish, bearing, as seen out of the water, re- 

 semblance to the goose's neck, were ignorantly, 

 and without investigation, confounded with geese 

 themselves, an error into which Albertus Magnus 

 (d. 1280) did not fall, and in which Pope Pius II. 

 proved himself infallible. Nevertheless, in France, 

 the Barnacle Goose may be eaten on fast-days by 

 virtue of this old belief in its marine origin. 



T. J. BUCKTON. 



DIAL INSCRIPTIONS. 



(Vol. iv., p. 507.; Vol. v., p. 155., &c.) 

 In the churchyard of Areley-Kings, "Worces- 

 tershire (where is the singular memorial to Sir 

 Ilari'y Coningsby, which I mentioned at Vol. vi , 



* See Penny Cycl, art. Cirripeda, vii. 208., revers- 

 ing the woodcut. 



