THE OAK. 



31 



next come the legs of the bird hanging out ; and 

 as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell by de- 

 grees, till at length it is all come forth, and 

 hangeth only by the bill ; in short space after it 

 cometh to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, 

 where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowl 

 bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose, 

 having black legs, bill, or beake, and feathers 

 black and white, spotted in such a manner as our 

 magpie ; called in some places a pie-aiinet ; which 

 the people of Lancashire call by no other name 

 than a tree-goose ; which place aforesaid, and the 

 parts adjoining, do much abound therewith that 

 one of the best is bought for three-halfpence. 

 For the truth hereof, if any doubt, let them re- 

 paire to me, and I shall satisfy them by the tes- 

 timonie of good -s^itnesses."* 



This strange fable took its rise from a certain 

 shell -fish being frequently found attached to pieces 

 of wood which had long lain in salt water. This 

 shell-fish, now called Lepas anatifera^ is provided 

 with a long leathery tube, by which it attaches 

 itself to the bottom of vessels, and to other tim- 

 ber ; it is also furnished near the other extremity 

 with a number of curved, feathery fibres, which, 

 when expanded, bear some resemblance to the tail 

 of a bird.f From this fancied similarity, and the 



* Herbal, p. 1588. 



t " It is hardly worth while to mention the clayks^ a sort of geese, 

 which are believed by some, with great admiration, to grow upon 

 trees on this coast, and in other places ; and, when they are ripe, to 

 fall down into the sea, because neither their nests nor eggs can any- 

 where be found. But they who saw the ship in which Sir Francis 

 Drake sailed round the world, when it was laid up in the river Thames, 

 could testify that little birds bred in the old rotten keels of ships, 

 since a great number of such, without life and feathers, stuck close 

 to the outside of the keel of that ship. Yet I should think that 



