Microscopical Essays. 361 



dented like a faw on the convex edge, and by their circular 

 difpofition are fo ranged, that the teeth in the alternate elevation 

 and depreffion of each plate aft againft whatever intervenes 

 between them. The plates are placed together in fuch a manner, 

 that to the naked eye they form an aperture not much unlike the 

 mouth of a contracted purfe. 



The weftern ifles of Scotland, and fome other parts of the 

 Britifh dominions, are abundantly ftored, at certain times of the 

 year, with a bird of the goofe kind, commonly known in thofe 

 places by the name of the brent goofe, or barnacle. Thefe 

 birds rarely breed with us, but feek for their fitting feafon iflands 

 lefs frequented than thofe where we find them in common. The 

 feeing the birds fo frequent, and yet never finding any of their 

 nefts, induced ignorant people to believe they never had any, and 

 that they were not bred like other birds. 



About the very mores where thefe birds are mo ft common, the 

 lepas anatifera is alfo found in great abundance. The fifhermen, 

 who obferved great quantities of thefe [hells affixed to rotten 

 wood, or dead trees, that were floating in the water, or lodged 

 by it on the more, were foon led to imagine that the filamentous 

 fubftances which hung out of them refembled feathers, and per- 

 fuaded themfelves that the gee fe, whole origin they could before 

 by no means make out, were bred from them, in (lead of being 

 hatched, like other birds, from eggs.* It was afterwards affirmed, 

 that the (hells themfelves originally grew on the trees, in the 

 manner of their fruit : and from this a role the opinion that the 

 barnacle, or brent goofe, was the produce of a tree. 



Xx Of 



* Hill's Natural Hiftory of -Animals. 



