70 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



throughout Europe for the singularity of its origin, and the 

 transformations it was supposed to undergo previous to its com- 

 plete organization. Its first appearance was said to be in the 

 form of a barnacle-shell adhering to old water-soaked logs, trees, 

 and other pieces of wood taken from the sea. Of this Goose- 

 bearing tree, Gerard in his Herbal, published in 1597, has 

 given a formal account, and seems to have reserved it for 

 ♦:he conclusion of his work, as being the most wonderful of all 

 he had to describe. The honest naturalist, however, though his 

 belief was fixed, acknowledges that his own personal infoiTna- 

 tion was deiived from certain shells which adhered to a rotten 

 tree. That he dragged it out of tlie sea between Dover and 

 Romney in England, in some of which he found living things 

 without form or shape ; in others, which were nearer come to 

 ripeness, living things ' that were very naked, in shape like a 

 birde; in others thebirdes covered with soft downe, the shell half 

 open, and the birde ready to fall out, \\hich, no doubt, were 

 the foules called Barnacles.' Ridiculous and chimerical as 

 this notion was, it had many advocates, and was at that time as 

 generally believed and with about as much reason too, as the 

 annual submersion of Swallows, so tenaciously insisted on by 

 some of our philosophers, and which, like the former absurdity, 

 will in its turn disappear before the penetrating radiance and 

 calm investigation of truth. 



" The Brant and Barnacle Goose, though generally reckoned 

 two diffex'ent species, I conceive to be the same. Among those 

 lai-ge flocks that arrive on our coast about the beginning of 

 October, individuals frequently occur corresponding in their 

 markings with that called the Barnacle of Europe, that is in 

 being the upper parts lighter and the froiit cheeks and chin 

 whitish. These appear evidently a variety of the Brent, proba- 

 bly young birds. What strengthens this last opinion is the fact, 

 that none of them are found so marked on their return north- 

 ward in the spring. The Brent is expected at Egg Harbor, on 

 the coast of New Jersey, about the first of October, and has 

 been sometimes seen as early as the twentieth of September. 



