ACOEN-BAENACLES. 13 



fruits that fell from tres which stood neuer in the 

 sea, conuerted within short time into geese, they 

 beleeued that these geese grew vpon trees, hanging 

 by their nebs as apples and other fruit doe by their 

 stalks, but their opinion is utterlie to be rejected. 

 For so soone as these apples, or fruits, fall from the 

 tree into the sea, they grow first to be worm-eaten, 

 and in process of time to be converted into geese."* 



Nearly 200 years after the above strange nar- 

 rative was written, we gather from the pages of 

 Gerarde, how firmly it was believed even among the 

 best informed of his day. This writer not only 

 gravely confirms the old historian's opinion, but is 

 at great pains in giving various engravings, intended 

 to represent the Barnacle Geese in the different stages 

 of their development, from the shelly mollusc to the 

 full-grown fowl. The latter are exhibited swimming 

 about under the boughs of the trees from which they 

 had fallen. " What our eies have seen, and our hands 

 have touched, we shall declare," is the authoritative 

 deliverance of the learned Gerarde. He describes the 

 process of transformation with minute accuracy, 

 adding that " as the shells gape, the legs hang out," 

 and " that the birde growing bigger and bigger, the 

 shells open more and more, till at length it all comes 

 forth, and hangeth by the bill." Thereafter it speedily 

 attains maturity, and " falleth into the sea, where it 

 gathereth feathers and groweth to a foule"(!) 



The Romish clergy helped greatly to substantiate 



* Vide Professor Fleming's "History of the Bass Rock." 



