114 Beautiful Shells. 



serve tlie purpose of a casting-net^ to seize and 

 drag to tlie moutli of tlie animal its prey, wliicli 

 consists of small mollusks and Crustacea. 



Tliis is tlie Barnacle about wliicli sucli strange 

 stories are told by old writers, wlio affirmed that 

 the Barnacle or Brent Goose, that in winter visits 

 our shores, is produced from these fleshy foot-stalks 

 and hairy shells by a natural process of growth, 

 or, as some philosophers of our day would say, 

 of development. Gerard, who, in 1597, wrote a 

 *^ Historic of Plants,'' describes the process by 

 which the fish is transformed into the bird ; telling 

 his readers that as ^' the shells gape, the legs hang 

 out, that the bird growing bigger and bigger, the 

 shells open more and more, till at length it is 

 attached only by the bill, soon after which it drops 

 into the sea ; there it acquires feathers, and grows 

 to a fowlc/' There is an amusing illustration 

 given in Gerard's book, where the young Geeso 

 are represented hanging on the branches of trees, 

 just ready to drop into the water, where a number 

 of those that have previously fallen, like ripe fruit, 

 and attained their full plumage, are sailing about 

 veiy contentedly. It was part of this theory that 

 the Barnacles were of vegetable origin, they grew 

 upon trees, or sprung out of the ground liko 



