HISTORY OF THE BARNACLE AND GOOSE 127 



the microscope in the inquiry, which was not brought 

 to a high state of efficiency until the last century. By 

 experiments similar to those of Redi, it was shown in 

 the first half of last century by Theodor Schwann that 

 even the minute bacteria do not appear in putrescible 

 material when those already in it are killed by boiling 

 that material, and when the subsequent access to it of 

 other bacteria is prevented by closing all possible 

 entrance of air-borne particles, or insect carriers of germs. 

 It took another fifty years to thoroughly establish by 

 observation and experiment the truth of Schwann's 

 refutation of the supposed " spontaneous generation " of 

 the minutest forms of life. 



As an example of the strange incapacity for making 

 correct observation and the failure to record correctly 

 things observed which are frequently exhibited by the 

 most highly placed " men of education," as well as by 

 uneducated peasants and fisher folk, we have the short 

 paper entitled, " A Relation concerning Barnacles," by Sir 

 Robert Moray— the first president of the Royal Society 

 of London (from 1661 until its incorporation in 1662) 

 — a very distinguished man, and an intimate friend of 

 King Charles II. This paper was read to the society in 

 1661 and published in 1677 in vol. xii. of the "Philo- 

 sophical Transactions." Sir Robert relates how he found 

 on the coast a quantity of dead barnacles attached to a 

 piece of timber, and that in each barnacle's shell was a 

 bird. He writes : " This bird in every shell that I 

 opened, as well the least as the biggest, I found so 

 curiously and completely formed that there appeared 

 nothing wanting, as to the external parts, for making up 

 a perfect sea-fowl ; every little part appearing so dis- 

 tinctly that the whole looked like a large bird seen 

 through a concave or diminishing glass, colour and 



