82 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



through God's assistance, discoursed somewhat at large of 

 Grasses, Herbes, Shrubs, Trees, Mosses, and certaine ex- 

 crescences of the earth, with other things moe incident to 

 the Historic thereof, we conclude and end our present 

 volume, with this woonder of England. For which God's 

 name be euer honored and praised." It is to be remarked 

 that Gerard's description of the goose-progeny of the bar- 

 nacle tree exactly corresponds with the appearance of the bird 

 known to ornithologists as the " barnacle goose ; " and there 

 can be no doubt that, skilled as was this author in the 

 natural-history lore of his day, there was no other feeling in 

 his mind than that of firm belief in and pious wonder at the 

 curious relations between the shells and their fowl-offspring. 

 Gerard thus attributes the origin of the latter to the bar- 

 nacles. He says nothing of the " wormeetin " holes and bur- 

 rows so frequently mentioned by Boece, nor would he have 

 agreed with the latter in crediting the " nature of the occeane 

 see " with their production, save in so far as their barnacle- 

 parents lived and existed in the waters of the ocean. 



The last account of this curious fable which we may 

 allude to in the present instance is that of Sir Robert Moray, 

 who, in his work entitled " A Relation concerning Bar- 

 nacles," published in the " Philosophical Transactions " of the 

 Royal Society in 1677-78, gives a succinct account of these 

 crustaceans and their bird-progeny. Sir Robert is described 

 as "lately one of his Majesties Council for the Kingdom of 

 Scotland," and we may therefore justly assume his account 

 to represent that of a cultured, observant person of his day 

 and generation. The account begins by remarking that the 

 "most ordinary trees " found in the western islands of Scot- 

 land " are Firr and Ash." " Being," continues Sir Robert, 

 " in the Island of East (Uist), I saw lying upon the shore a 

 cut of a large Firr tree of about 2 y z foot diameter, and 9 

 or 10 foot long; which had lain so long out of the water 

 that it was very dry : And most of the shells that had for- 

 merly cover'd it, were worn or rubb'd off. Only on the 

 parts that lay next the ground, there still hung multitudes of 



