162 ORIGIN OF BERNICLE-GOOSE. 



curiously arranged, and between them the cirrhi 

 are protruded. The word "goose-bearing" i& 

 given to it because an old writer named Gerard, 

 who lived in 1636, discovered that the Bernicle- 



BERNICLE-GOOSE. 



goost) {Bernicla leucopsis) was produced from 

 the ship-barnacle ; and in order to prove his own 

 rather startUng account, he gives drawings of 

 the creatures in all their stages, from the mollusc 

 to the bird. Whether the worthy man intended 

 to deceive, or was himself the victim of others, 

 it is impossible to say. His account is so quaint 

 that I here give an extract: — 



"What our eyes have seen, and hands have 

 touched, we shall declare. There is a small island 

 in Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein 



