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.”‘ 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. 
A\Tiat 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 v/hitish 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 cometli 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, 
^ Cosmographie of Albioun, by Bellenden, Black Letter, Edinburgh, (supposed 
1541,) ch. xiii. 
