NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 53 



exa£t drawing annexed appears. This peculiar creature is of 

 about afinger's length and half, and an inch broad, and pretty 

 thick : it is brown and fpungy, a little curFd or fhrivell'd, like 

 an apple, when it is dry'd j fo that at firft it may be twice the 

 length. ^ Its neck is tough and hollow, like the ringer of a glove : 

 when it is opened there is nothing to be feen, but fome fmall and 

 fine deep black filaments ; thefe are like bunches of flax all 

 through. The one end of the neck is made faft to the timber in 

 manner of a fpunge ; the other, or the end that hangs down, has 

 a double fhell, of a light blue colour, and of fubftance like a 

 mufcle-fhell, but much lefs, about the fize of an almond, and, 

 like it, of a fharp oval figure. When this fhell is opened' 

 there is found in it the little creature reported to be a young 

 Wild Goofe. Almoft its whole fubftance, which is compofed of 

 fmall toughilh membranes, reprefents fome little crooked dark 

 feathers, fqueezed together, their ends running together in a 

 clufter : hence it has been fuppofed to be of the Bird kind. At the 

 extremity of the neck alfo there is fomething that looks like an 

 extreme fmall Bird's head 3 but one muft take the force of imaoi. 

 nation to help to make it look fo : this I have conftantly found 

 on many examinations ; and in all my enquiries, I cannot learn 

 that any one has ever feen any thing more ; though there are many 

 who pretend to appeal to witnefles for the fa£r, that have {ecu. 

 this young Goofe, as they call it. I will allow that they may 

 have feen in this fhell a living Sea-Infect, as it certainly is, but 

 nothing elfe. 



When the Duck's egg is opened, the young one is never found 

 like this, confiding of nothing but feathers ; they on Ducklings 

 come afterwards, in the place of the down, which appears firft - 

 but here is no down, and there feems to be no body, nothing but 

 long, crooked, fqueezed up feathers, with a little point, or fmall 

 button, at the end^ that may refemble a head, if fancy will have 

 it fo, as has been laid. 



The opinion of the Geefe's ejected feed is, letting all the reft 

 afide, doubly improbable, in confideration that the fame conchas 

 anatiferas are found not only on old timber, floating ■on the 

 water, but alfo on fmall branches of fuch fea-trees as the fifher- 

 nien affirm grow only in the deep ocean, from the very bottom 

 at ico fathom or more. I have fome of fuch branches, with this 

 ftrange growth on them. Where thefe grow no bird can come : 

 and their evacuations, efpecially the fluid kind, cannot fink thi' 

 ther, or be colleSed in a ftate of prolification. I will not take 

 upon me to difcufs how contrary to nature one might call fuch a 



PaRtI1 ' P generation, 



