356 WEB-FOOTED BIRDS. 



are, though rarely, seen about Hudson's Bay, but are mere 

 stragglers along the coasts of the United States. 



The origin of the Barnacle Goose, seen so common in 

 some parts of Europe in winter, but hiding itself in the remotest 

 wilds of the Arctic circle in the season of breeding, has given 

 rise to the most ridiculous fables ever invented in natural 

 history. It was long believed to be the produce of a kind 

 of shells, hence called conchcE anatifercB* found on certain 

 trees on the coast of Scotland and the Orkneys, or on the 

 rotten timber of decayed ships. Some even described these 

 supposed embryos as fruits in whose structure already ap- 

 peared the lineaments of a fowl, and being forthwith drop- 

 ped into the sea, turned directly into birds. Munster, Saxo 

 Grammaticus, and Scaliger even, asserted this absurdity. 

 Fulgosus affirmed that the trees which bore these won- 

 derful fruits resembled willows, producing at the ends of 

 their branches small swelled balls containing the embryo of 

 a duck, suspended by the bill, which, when ripe, fell off into 

 the sea and took to wing. Bishop Leslie, Torquemada, 

 Odericus, the Bishop Olaus Magnus, and a learned car- 

 dinal, all attested to the truth of their monstrous generation. 

 Hence the bird has been called the Tree Goose, and one of 

 the Orkneys, the scene of the prodigy, has received the 

 appellation of Pomona. 



It is needless to quote any other authorities for such folly, 

 though the learned Cambden and Hector Boece were among 

 the number, who not only vouched for the truth of this prodigy, 

 but added remarks of their own to the same effect. Even 

 Cardan, Rondelet, Gyraldus and Maier gave credit to these 

 fables, and some of them wrote treatises on the subject. 

 Maier, in particular, opened a hundred of the Goose-bearing 



* The Lepas anatifera, of Liniifeus ; tlie exserted tentaculi of which resemble 

 the barbs of a fe;ither, and hence probabl}, besides its curious fleshy pedicle, arose 

 the idea of its relation to the organization of an embryo bird. 



