30 THE BERNACLE GOOSE. 



similar contents, but slightly differing from the preced- 

 ing. On breaking several, be observed in some, living 

 things without shape, but, says he, " in others, which 

 were nearer come to perfection_, I found living things 

 that were naked, in shape like a bird ; in others the 

 birds were covered with soft down, the shell half open^ 

 and the bird ready to fall out, which, no doubt, were 

 the fowls called bemacles." 



Bishop Pontoppidan, the author of '• The History of 

 Korwav,"" discovers similar credulity. '• This pecuhar 

 creature," he says, •'• is about a finger's length and a half 

 in lenofth, and an inch broad, and pretty thick." He de- 

 scribes it as consisting of two parts, the one end being 

 composed of a soft, spongy, brown substance, attached by 

 a hollow neck to the timber on which it is usually found ; 

 and the other end covered by a shell of two plates, 

 smaller in size than a mussel shell. He then con- 

 tinues : — " ^\^len this shell is opened, there is found in 

 it the little creature supposed to be a wild goose. Al- 

 most its whole substance, which is composed of small 

 toughish membranes, represents some little crooked 

 dark feathers, squeezed together, their ends ending in 

 a cluster ; hence it has been supposed to be of the bird 

 kind. At the extremity of the neck, also, there is 

 something that looks Uke an extremely small bird's 



