Species III. ANAS BERNICLA. 



THE BRANT. 



[Plate LXXII. Fig. 1.] 



Le Oravant, Briss. vi., p. 304, 16, pi. 31.— Bdff. ix., p. 87.— Bewick, ii., p. 277. 

 -Lath. Syn. in., p. 4&7.—Arct. Zool. No. 478.* 



The Brant, or as it is usually written Brent, is a bird well known on 

 both continents, and celebrated in former times throughout Europe for 

 the singularity of its origin, and the strange transformations it was sup- 

 posed to undergo previous to its complete organization. Its first ap- 

 pearance was said to be in the form of a barnacle shell adhering to old 

 water-soaked logs, trees, or other pieces of wood taken from the sea. 

 Of this Croose-hearing tree Gerard, in his Herbal, published in 1597, has 

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

 sion 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 information was derived from certain shells, which 

 adhered to a rotten tree that he dragged out of the sea between Dover 

 and Romney in England ; in some of which he found " living things 

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

 living things that were very naked, in shape like a birde ; in others the 

 birds covered with soft downe, the shell half open and the birde 

 readie to fall out, which no doubt were the foules called Barnakles."t 

 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 present opinion of 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 dif- 

 ferent species, I consider to be the same.J Among those large flocks 



* Anas Bernicla, Gmel. Syst. i., p. 513, No. 13. — Ind. Orn. p. 844, No. 32. — Le 

 Cravant, Buff. PI. Enl. 342. Oie Cravant, Temm. Man. d'Orn. p. 824. 



t See Gerard's Herbal, Art. Goose-bearing Tree. 



X The ridiculous account of the origin of the Barnacle Goose, extracted from the 

 Herbal of Gerard, is retained for the amusement of the reader ; but it is necessary 

 to state, that the opinion of our author with respect to the identity of the Brant 

 and Barnacle is erroneous, these birds forming distinct species. 



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