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shall see what a progress had been made towards truth, 

 even in that short space of time. ' What is reported con- 

 cerning 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 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, Sennertus 

 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 confi- 

 dently persuaded. Neither do these want sufficient argu- 

 ments 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 

 nr spontaneous generation. Among other animals indeed, 

 the leaser and more imperfect, as for example many insects 

 and frogs, are commonly thought either to be of sponta- 

 neous original, or to come of different seeds and principles. 

 But the greater animals and perfect in their kind, 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 Columna. 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 of Balanus marinus. 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 expe- 

 rience.' 



Here we see the clouds that ha.l 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 contempt. Tiiere has been much confu- 

 sion in the nomenclature uf this bird. Linnaeus considered 

 it as the male of Anier erythropui (.white-fronted wild 

 goose), and treated Anser brentu (the brent-goose), and 

 A. bern'da as synonyms. Succeeding writers continued 

 the mistake, till Temminck and Bechstein, instead of re- 

 storing the name given to it by the older ornithologists, 

 called it Anser leucopsis, but did not refer the specific 

 name Erifthropus to the Anas albifrons of Gmelin and 

 Latham. 



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

 right, and has properly described the bernicle-goose as 

 Anier bernicla, and the white-fronted wild-goose as Anser 

 en/lhropus. 



The summer haunts of the bernicle reach high into 

 northern latitudes. Iceland, Spitzbcrgen, Greenland, Lap- 

 land, the north of Russia and of Asia, and Hudson's Bay, 

 are recorded as its breeding places. Dr. Richardson notes 

 it as accidental on the Saskatchewan (53 54' N. lat.) as a 

 passenger in spring and autumn, and gives the southern 

 states of the North American Union as its winter quarters. 

 It visits Britain in the autumn, appearing in great num- 

 bers on the north-western coasts, and in the north of 

 Ireland. On the eastern and southern shores of Britain 

 it is comparatively rare, and the Brent-goose occupies its 

 place. 



The weight of a bernicle is about five pounds, the length 

 rather more than two feet, and the breadth about four and 

 a half with the wings spread. The bill, about an inch 

 and a half long, is black, with a reddish streak on each 

 side, and between it and the eyes is a small black streak. 

 I rides brown ; head (to the crown), cheeks, and throat white ; 

 the rest of the head, neck, and shoulders black. Upper 

 part of the plumage marbled with blue, grey, black, and 

 white; belly and tail coverts white; tail black; Hanks 

 ashy grey; legs and feet dusky. 



The eye-streak is much broader in the young of the year 

 than in the adult ; the under parts are not of so pure a 

 white, and the upper plumage is darker. 



The llesh is excellent. 



[Bcruicle goose.] 



Bernicla Sandvicensis, Vig., the Sandwich Island goose, 

 hatched young in the year 1834 at Knowsley in Lancashire. 

 One of the goslings still lives mid thrives (the others were 

 killed by accident), and Lord Stanley (now Earl of Derby) 

 has little doubt that these Sandwich Island geese may, wiili 

 care and attention, be easily established, and form a va- 

 luable addition to the stock of British domesticated fowls. 

 (See Proceedings of the Zoological Society.) 



BERNI'NI, GIOVANNI LORENZO, born at Naples 

 in 1598, was the son of Pietro Bernini, a Florentine painter 

 and sculptor. While young Bernini was still a child, his 

 father removed with his family to Rome, being commissioned 

 by Pope Paul V. to work at the Borghese Chapel in Santa 

 Maria Maggiore. Young Bernini showed a remarkable dis- 

 position for sculpture; and at ten years of age having made 

 a head in marble, which was generally admired, the pope, 

 sent for him, and recommended him to the care of Cardinal 

 MafTeo Barberiui. At seventeen years of age Bernini 

 made the fine group of Apollo and Daphne, which was 

 afterwards placed in the Villa Borghese. He studied 

 architecture at the same time, as well as sculpture. Gre- 

 gory XV., who succeeded Paul V., employed him in 

 several works, bestowed on him pensions, and made him 

 a knight. After Gregory's death, when Cardinal Bar 

 berini was elected pope under the name of Urban VIII., 

 Bernini became his favourite architect and sculptor, and 

 then executed the great works which have established his 

 fame: we can only mention the principal: 1. The Confes- 

 sion of St. Peter's, i. e- the bronze columns and canopy under 

 the dome, at which he worked for nine years, and for which 

 he received 10,000 scudi, besides a pension and two livings 

 for his brothers ; 2. The palace Barberini and the fountain 

 in the square before it; 3. The front of the College de 

 Propaganda Fide ; 4. Several other fountains in Rome ; 

 5. Various works and ornaments in the interior of St. Pe- 

 ter's ; among others the niches and staircases in the piers 

 which support the cupola, and for which he was charged liy 

 superficial critics with having occasioned the cracks that 

 showed themselves in the dome about that time. But the 

 piers had been made hollow from the beginning ; and it 

 was afterwards proved by the examinations of Polcni 

 and other architects that the cracks in the dome were 

 occasioned by other causes. (See Milizia's lives of Ber- 

 nini, Carlo Fontana, and Vanvitelli.) Among his other 

 works Bernini made a head of Charles I. of England, for 

 which he was handsomely remunerated. Cardinal Ma- 

 zarin invited him to France, and offered him a rich pen- 

 sion ; but Pope Urban would not hear of his leaving Rome, 

 nor was Bernini himself inclined to go. When forty years 

 of age Bernini married Caterina Fezi, the daughter of a 

 respectable citizen of Rome. His life from that time be- 

 came extremely regular; he lived frugally, worked hard 



No. 244. 



[THE PENNY CYC LOP/EDI A.] 



VOL. IV. 2 S 



