64 THE BRANT. 
throughout Europe for the singularity of its origin, and the 
strange transformations it was supposed to undergo previous 
to its complete organisation. Its first appearance 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 goose-bearing tree, Gerard, in his “ Herbal,” published 
in 1597, has given a formal account, and seems to have 
reserved it for the conclusion 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.” * 
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 different species, I consider to be the same. Among those 
large flocks that arrive on our coasts about the beginning of 
October, individuals frequently occur corresponding in their 
markings with that called the bernacle of Europe; that is, in 
geese by their shorter and slenderer beak, the edges of which are 
reflected over the lamelle, and obstruct the view of them.” We shall 
consider the form to which that title should be restricted to be that of 
the present—the B. erythropus, and B. rujicollis. Many of those admitted 
by Stephen show very different characters, and will range elsewhere.— 
Ep. 
* See Gerard’s Herbal, Art. Goose-bearing Tree. 


