CHAPTER XIV 



THE HISTORY OF THE BARNACLE AND THE 

 GOOSE 



THE curious belief, widely spread in former ages 

 that the creatures (described in the last chapter) 

 called " barnacles " or " ship's barnacles " often found 

 attached in groups to pieces of floating timber in the 

 sea as well as fixed to the bottoms of wooden ships 

 are the young of a particular kind of goose called " the 

 barnacle goose," which is supposed to hatch out of the 

 white shell of the long-stalked barnacle, is a very 

 remarkable example of the persistence of a tradition 

 which is entirely fanciful. It was current in Western 

 Europe for six or seven centuries, and was discussed, 

 refuted, and again attested by eminent authorities even 

 as late as the foundation of the Royal Society the first 

 president of which, Sir Robert Moray, read a paper at 

 one of the earliest meetings of the society in 1661, in 

 which he described the bird-like creature which he had 

 observed within the shell of the common ship's barnacle, 

 and favoured the belief that a bird was really in this 

 way produced by a metamorphosis of the barnacle. 



The story was ridiculed and rejected by no less a 

 philosopher than Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century, 

 and was also discredited by the learned Aristotelian 

 Albertus Magnus at about the same time. No trace of 



