SPECIES 3. AN^S BERNICLA. 
THE BRANT. 
[Plate LXXIL— Fig. 1.] 
Lc CravantfBiiiss.vi, p. 304. 16. pi. 31. — Buff. i\, p. 87. — Be- 
wick, II, p. '3177. — Lath. Syn. iii, p. 467. — Arct. Zool. JV’o. 478. 
— Peale’s Museum, JYo. 2704.^ 
The Brant, or as it is usually written Brent, is a bird well 
known on both continents, and celebrated in former times 
throughout Europe for the singularity of its origin, and the 
strange transformations it was supposed to undergo previous to 
its complete organization. Its first appearance was said to be in 
the form of a barnacle shell adhering to old water-soaked logs, 
trees, or other pieces of wood taken from the sea. Of this Goose- 
bearing tree Gerard, in his Herbal, published in 1597, has 
given a formal account, and seems to have reserved it for the 
conclusion of his work as being the most wonderful of all he 
had to describe. The honest naturalist however, though his be- 
lief was fixed, acknowledges that his own personal information 
was derived from certain shells, which adhered to a rotten tree 
that he dragged out of the sea between Dover and Romney in 
England; in some of which he found “ living things without 
forme or shape; in others which were nearer come to ripeness, 
living things that were very naked, in shape like a birde; in 
others the birds covered with soft downe, the shell half open 
and the birde readie to fall out, which no doubt were the foules 
called Barnakles.”t Ridiculous and chimerical as this notion 
was, it had many advocates, and was at that time as generally 
believed, and with about as much reason too, as the present 
* Jinas Bernicla, Gmel. Syst. i, p. 513, A'b. 13. — Ind. Orn. p. S44, ATs. 32 — 
Le Cramnt, Burr. PL Enl. 342. Oie Cravant, Temm. Man. d'Orn. p. 824. 
t See Gerard’s Herbal, Art. Goose-bearing: Tree. 
