415 



BERKELEY.*. 



BEBNICLE GOOSE. 



scutellum with 4, 6, or 8 points ; abdomen with 7 distinct segments ; 

 the first joint of the posterior tarsi iucrassate in the male ; the 

 wings have four posterior cells, and sometimes the indication of a 

 fifth. 



The ova of one of the species of this genus (Beris claripes) are said 

 to be ejected from the ovipositor in the form of a little chain, about 

 an inch long, consisting of a single series of oval eggs, which are glued 

 to each other in an oblique position. Most probably the eggs of the 

 other species are ejected in the same manner. 



B12RKELEYA, a genus of Diatomacet?, named by Greville in 

 honour of the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, distinguished for his researches 

 in cryptogamic botany. It belongs to the suborder Naviculeie, and is 

 characterised by having linear frustules included within tubular sub- 

 membranaceous filaments, which are free at one extremity, but have 

 the other immersed in a gelatinous tubercle. B. frayilis is found 

 parasitic on Zostera marina, and some of the smaller marine Alyie on 

 the British coasts. B. Adriatica has been found on the coasts of the 

 Adriatic at Trieste. 



BERNICLE GOOSE or CLARIS, the vernacular name for the 

 /.' .; lirla of Ray, Anser Bernida of Fleming; the Bernicle, Bernacle 

 Goose, and Barnacle Goose of authors. This bird affords an instance 

 of the credulity with which those who in their generation were 

 held wise and learned, accepted the most absurd traditions, and 

 handed them down to posterity with the additional weight of their 

 authority. A cirrhiped, a marine testaceous animal, the Pentdasmis 

 tin nl if era at Leach, Anatifa Ian-is of Bruguidres, Lepcu anatifcra of 

 Limiicus, the Duck Barnacle of collectors, was long asserted to be 

 rent of the Bernicle Goose. This common shell is fixed to a 

 long fleshy peduncle, and is frequently found attached to floating 

 timber and even sea-weed. The teutacula, which proceed from the 

 anterior opening of the valves, have an appearance that recalls to the 

 mind of a casual inaccurate observer the recollection of a feather, and 

 hence, in all probability, the fable took its origin. " Some," writes 

 Nuttall, " even described these supposed embryos as fruits, in whose 

 stnicture already appeared the lineaments of a fowl, and which, being 

 forthwith dropped into the sea, turned directly into birds. Munster, 

 Saxo Grammaticus, and Scaliger even, asserted this absurdity. Fulgosus 

 affirmed that the trees which bore these wonderful fruits resembled 

 willows, producing at the ends of their branches small swelled balTs 

 containing the embryo of a duck, suspended by the bill, which when 

 ripe fell off into the sea and took wing. Bishop Leslie, Torquemada, 

 Oilericus, the Bishop Olaus Magnus, and a learned cardinal, 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." 



Not to weary the reader with names, and some of great reputation 

 might be added, we will proceed to trace the fable as told by Gerard, 

 merely adding by the way, that one of the other worthies is recorded 

 to have opened 100 of the goose-bearing shells, and to have found in 

 all of them the rudiments of the bird completely formed. Gerard, 

 then, as if determined that no sceptic should have the slightest 

 ground whereon to rest a doubt, thus gives his evidence in his 

 'Herbal': 



" But what our eyes have scene and hands have touched we shall 

 declare. There is a small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of 

 Fonlders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, 

 some whereof have been, cast thither by shipwracke, and also the 

 trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees, cast up 

 there likewise ; whereon is found a certaine spume, or froth, that in 

 time breedeth unto certaine shells, in shape like those of the muskle, 

 but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour ; wherein is contained a 

 thing in form like a lace of silke finely woven as it were together, of 

 a whitish colour ; one end whereof is fastened unto the inside of the 

 xhull, even as the fish of oisters and muskles are ; the other end is 

 made fast unto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time 

 i: 'Tinneth to the shape and form of a bird ; when it is perfectly formed 

 the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid 

 lace or string ; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it 

 groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all 

 come forth and hangeth only by the bill ; in short space after it 

 commeth to full maturitie, and fiilleth into the sea, where it gathereth 

 feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a milliard and lesser than 

 agoosc, having blacke legs and bill or beak e. uml feathers blacke and 

 white, spotted in such manner as is our mag-pie, called in some places 

 a pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name 

 than a tree-goose ; which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoining, 

 do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for 

 three-pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them 

 to repnire until me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimouie of good 

 witnesses." This edifying deposition is illustrated by a cut of thr 

 goose and of its [Birent shell. 



Now, after this, can we wonder at the melancholy catalogue of 



human beings who have expiated the supposed crime of witchcraft nt 



1 ike on the testimony of their deluded and deluding prosecutors ? 



! :i man of learning and of considerable accuracy in many j>int.~. 



the author of a valuable work containing much int'ornmtion, who 



gravely and deliberately, on the authority of two of the most :i 



his sense*, asserts a downright falsehood and courts investigation. 1 1.- 



may moreover be acquitted of any intention to deceive ; but his mind 

 was filled with previous assertions and preconceived opinions, and his 

 excited imagination, like that of the majority of the witnesses against 

 the unfortunate witches, gave a colour and a form to all he saw and felt. 



Gerard published this celebrated romance in 1636. If we now turn 

 to Ray's edition of Willughby, published in 167S, we shall see what a 

 progress had been made towards truth, even in that short space of 

 time. " What is reported concerning the rise and original of these 

 birds, to wit, that they are bred of rotten wood ; for instance, of the 

 masts, ribs, and planks of broken ships, half putrified and corrupted, 

 or of certain palms of trees [the catkins of the willow] falling into the 

 sea ; or lastly, of a kind of sea-shells, the figures whereof Lobel, 

 Gerard, and others have set forth, may be seen in Aldrovand, Sen- 

 nertus in his ' Hypomnemata,' Michael Meyerus, who hath written an 

 entire book concerning the tree-fowl, and many others. But that all 

 these stories are false and fabulous I am confidently persuaded. 

 Neither do these want sufficient arguments to induce the lovers of 

 truth to be of our opinion, and to convince the gainsayers. For in 

 the whole genus of birds (excepting the phoenix, whose reputed 

 original is without doubt fabulous) there is not any one example of 

 equivocal or spontaneous generation. Among other animals indeed, 

 the lesser and more imperfect, as for example many insects and frogs, 

 are commonly thought either to be of spontaneous original, or to come 

 of different seeds and principles. But the greater animals and perfect 

 in their kinds, such as is among birds the goose, no philosopher would 

 ever admit to-be in this manner produced. Secondly, those shells in 

 which they affirm these birds to be bred, and to come forth by a 

 strange metamorphosis, do most certainly contain an animal of their 

 own kind, and not transmutable into any other thing, concerning 

 which the reader may please to consult that curious naturalist Fabius 

 Columua. These shells we ourselves have seen, once at Venice, 

 growing in great abundance to the keel of an old ship ; a second time 

 in the Mediterranean Sea, growing to the back of a tortoise we took 

 between Sicily and Malta. Columna makes the shell-fish to be a kind 

 i>( BalmtiiK iitfirinui. Thirdly, that these geese do lay eggs after the 

 manner of other birds, sit on them and hatch their young, the 

 Hollanders in their northern voyages affirm themselves to have found 

 by experience." 



Here we see the clouds that had obscured the subject nearly cleared 

 away, though there is still a little lingering error in the tacit admission 

 of the spontaneous generation of the frogs and insects. 



It is no small praise to Belon and some others that, even in their 

 early time, they treated this fable of the duck-bearing tree with con- 

 tempt. There has been much confusion in the nomenclature of this 

 bird. Linnanis considered it as the male of An&er ertfthropu* (White- 

 Fronted Wild- Goose), and treated Anaer Brenta (the Brent-Goose), and 

 .1 . II' micla as synonyms. Succeeding writers continued the mistake 

 till Temminck and Bechstein, instead of restoring the name given to 

 it by the older ornithologists, called it Awer kucopsis, but did not 

 refer the specific name rytkropus to the A run albifrons of Gmeliu and 

 Latham. 



lic-i mclc-Goosc (Anter llcriricln). 



Dr. Fleming, in his ' History of British Animals,' set this right, ami 

 has properly described the Bernicle-Goose as Anger Bernida, and the 

 White-Fronted Wild-Goose as Anter erytliropui. 



