32 



BERNACLE GOOSE. 



anatifera, Linn.) which is frequently found in vast abundance, adhering 

 by a pedicle to logs of wood that have lain long in the sea. Strange 

 as this may appear in this enlightened age, it was credited and handed 

 down by various authors, * of no mean reputation, both in Scotland and 

 England, who asserted, that they themselves witnessed the miraculous 

 transformation, and it was hence called by continental writers, the 

 British Bird. One of the oldest ocular witnesses of the circumstance 

 is Hector Boece, the Scottish historian. " All trees," he says, " that 

 are cast into the seas by process of time, appear first worm-eaten, and 

 in the small holes and bores thereof grow small worms : first they 

 show their head and feet, and last of all they show their plumes and 

 wings : finally, when they are coming to the just measure and quantity 

 of geese, they fly in the air as other fowls do, as was notably proven 

 in the year of God, 1480, in sight of many people, beside the Castle 

 of Pitsligo." 1 Similar stories are related and credited by Turner, 

 Gesner, Cardan, Bishop Leslie, Bishop Majolus, Odoric, Scaliger, 

 Baptista Porta, Kircher, Lobel, Isidore, Delrio, Aldrovand, Johnston, 

 and many others, all of which I have had the curiosity to examine ; 

 but cannot here spare room to quote more than the following singular 

 passage from old Gerald, the herbalist. 



" What our eyes have seen," says he, " and our hands have touched, 

 we shall declare. There is a small island, in Lancashire, called the 

 Pile of Soulders, wherein are found broken pieces of old and bruised 

 ships, some whereof have been cast thither by ship-wrecks ; also the 

 trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees, cast up 

 those likewise : whereon is found a certain spume or froth, that in 

 time breedeth unto certain shells, in shape like those of the muscle, 

 but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour, and the end whereof is 

 fastened unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oysters and 

 muscles are : and the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude 

 mass or lump, which in time cometh into the shape and form of a 

 bird. When it is perfectly formed, the shell gapeth open, and then 

 the first thing that appeareth, is the aforesaid lace or string; next 

 cometh the legs of the bird hanging out ; and, as the bird groweth 

 greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it has all come 

 forth, and hangeth only by the bill. In short space after it cometh to 

 full maturity, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and 

 groweth to a fowl, bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose, 



1 Cosmographie of Albioun, by Bellenden, Black Letter, Edinburgh, (supposed 

 1541,) ch. xiii. 



