So LEISURE-TIME STUDIES, 



Lifting up a piece of tangle, they beheld the sea-weed to be 

 hanging full of mussel-shells from the root to the branches.. 

 Maister Galloway opened one of the mussel-shells, and was 

 " mair astonist than afore " to find no fish therein, but a per- 

 fectly shaped "foule, smal and gret," as corresponded to- 

 the " quantity of the shell." And once again Boece draws 

 the inference that the trees or wood on which the creatures 

 are found have nothing to do with the origin of the birds ; 

 and that the fowls are begotten of the " occeane see, quhilk," 

 concludes our author, " is the caus and production of mony 

 wonderful thingis." 



More than fifty years after the publication of Boece's 

 "History," old Gerard of London, the famous "master in 

 chirurgerie" of his day, gave an account of the barnacle 

 goose, and not only entered into minute particulars of its 

 growth and origin, but illustrated its manner of production 

 by means of the engraver's art of his day. Gerard's 

 " Herball," published in 1597, thus contains, amongst much 

 that is curious in medical lore, a very quaint piece of 

 zoological history. He tells us that "in the north parts 

 of Scotland, and the Hands adjacent, called Orchades 

 (Orkneys)," are found "certaine trees, whereon doe growe 

 certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet; 

 wherein are conteined little living creatures : which shels in 

 time of maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those 

 little living foules whom we call Barnakles, in the north of 

 England Brant Geese, and in Lancashire tree Geese; but 

 the other that do fall upon the land, perish, and come to 

 nothing : thus much by the writings of others, and also from 

 the mouths of people of those parts, which may," concludes 

 Gerard, "very well accord with truth." 



Not content with hearsay evidence, however, Gerard 

 relates what his eyes saw and hands touched. He describes 

 how on the coasts of a certain "small Ilande in Lancashire 

 called Pile of Foulders " (probably Peel Island), the wreckage 

 of ships is cast up by the waves, along with the trunks and 

 branches "of old and rotten trees." On these wooden 



