THE BERfrACLE GOOSE. 



Curious extracts. 



(goose-bearing shell), on certain trees on th 

 coasts of Scotland and the Orkneys, or on the 

 rotten timbers of old ships. For the entertain- 

 ment of our readers, we shall give brief extracts 

 from three, out of the numerous, writers who 

 have credited these circumstances, and have all 

 spoken positively upon the subject. 



Maier, who has written a treatise expressly 

 on this bird, says, cc that it certainly originates 

 from shells: and, what is still more wonderful, 

 that he himself opened a hundred of the goose- 

 beftring shells in the Orkneys, and found in all 

 of them the rudiments of the bird completely 

 formed." 



Gerard, another writer on this point, and an 

 Englishman, gives the following account of this 

 wonderful transformation : " What our eyes 

 have seen, and our hands have touched, we shall 

 declare. There is a small island in Lancashire, 

 called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found 

 pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof 

 have been cast thither by shipwrecks ; also the 

 trunks and bodies, with the branches of old and 

 rotten trees, cast up there likewise; whereon is 

 found a certain spume or froth, that in time 

 breedeth into certain shells, in shape like those, 

 of the muscle, but sharper pointed, and of a 

 whitish colour, one end whereof is fastened unto 

 the inside of the shell, even as the fish' of oysters 

 and muscles are; the other end is made fast unto 

 the belly of a rude mass or lump, which in time 



