3o6 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



Robinson subsequently contradicted Sir Robert Moray 

 and assured the society that "the Brent Geese were bred, 

 like other geese, from eggs laid by the females, and that 

 the shell which it was pretended contained them had 

 nothing in it but a * fish/ such as oysters, cockles, and all 

 other shells." 



Ray, in his edition of Willughby's Ornithology, published 

 in the same year as the above, contradicted the fallacy as 

 strongly as Caspar Schott ; and (except that he incidentally 

 admits the possibility of spontaneous generation in some 

 of the lower animals, as insects and frogs) in language so 

 similar that I think he must have had Schott's work before 

 him when he wrote. 



Aldrovandus * tells us that an Irish priest, named Octa- 

 vianus, assured him, with an oath on the Gospels, that he 

 had seen and handled the geese in their embryo condition ; 

 and he adds that he " would rather err with the majority 

 than seem to pass censure on so many eminent writers who 

 have believed the story." 



In 1629 Count Maier (Michaelus Meyerus these old 

 authors when writing in Latin, latinized their names also) 

 published a monograph ' On the Tree-bird ' f in which he 

 explains. the process of its birth, and states that he opened 

 a hundred of the goose-bearing shells and found the rudi- 

 ments of the bird fully formed. 



Now, let us turn from fiction to facts. 



1665: "Sir Robert Moray affirmed that he had known a man who 

 could take two or three pipes of tobacco into his stomach before he 

 let out any smoke ; and then let it out afterwards all together. This 

 was seconded by Mr. Evelyn, who remarked that he had seen a person 

 who after taking tobacco would discourse awhile before he let out the 

 smoke." 



* Ornithologia,) lib. xix. p. 173, ed. 1603. 



t De Valuer i Arbor ea, 1629. 



