ase 
BERNACLE GOOSE. Crass IL 
These birds appear in vast flocks during win- 
ter, on the north west coasts of this kingdom ; 
are very shy and wild, but on being taken, grow 
as familiar as our tame geese in a few days; in 
February they quit our shores, and retire as 
far as Lapland to breed.* 
They live to a great age; the Rev. Doctor 
Buckworth of Spalding had one which was kept 
in the family above two and thirty years; but 
was blind during the two last; what its age was 
when first taken is unknown. 
These are the birds that about.two hundred 
years ago were believed to be generated out of 
wood, or rather a species of shell that often 
adheres to the bottoms of ships, or frag- 
ments of them, and were called Tree-geese.} 
They were also thought by some writers to have 
been the Chenalopeces of Pliny ; they should 
have said Chenerotes, for those are the birds, 
that naturalist said, were found in Britain; but 
as he has scarcely left us any description of 
them, it is difficult to say which species he in- 
tended. I should imagine it to be the Brent- 
goose, which is far inferior in size to the wild 
* Amen. Acad. vi. 585. Barent’s Voy. 19. , 
+ The shell here meant is the lepas anatifera. Br. Zool. i iv. 
62. tab. 38.-f. 9. Lin. syst: 668. Argenville Conch. tab. 7. the 
animal that inhabits it is furnished with a feathered beard ; which, 
in a credulous age, was believed to be part of the young bird. 
eo 
