BRITISH BIRDS. 309 
tifes were written exprefsly on thefe chimerical prin- 
ciples, giving a particular defcription of their firft 
appearance, progreffive growth, birth, (or final ex- 
clufion from the ftiell) and of their dropping into 
the fea, fwimming about, and becoming perfectly 
feathered birds, &c; Other authors, indeed, lefs 
credulous, fufpeded the truth of thefe alTertions : 
Belon was of the number of thofe who laughed at 
the ftory in his day ; and Willoughby, long after 
him, treated fuch incoherent narratives with con- 
tempt. It muft excite regret, that fo refpedable, 
fo learned, and fo grave an author as Gerard, fliould 
not only have believed this wonderful transforma- 
tion, but that he fiiould have introduced the idle tale 
into his invaluable Herbal.* But even to enume- 
* See Gerard’s Herbal, publiflied in 1597, article — The 
Goofe-tree^^ which he feems to have referved for the conclufion 
of his work, as being the moft wonderful of all he had to de- 
fcribe. A fmall ifland called the Pile of Foulders, half a mile 
from the main land of Lancafliire, he fays, is the native foil of 
the Tree hearing Geefe^^ and fo plentiful is the fruit, that a full- 
grown bird is fold for three-pence. The honeft naturalift, how- 
ever, although his belief was fixed, admits that his own perfonal 
knowledge was confined to certain fhells which adhered to a 
rotten tree that he dragged from the fea between Dover and 
Romney, in fome of which he found “ llulng things without 
forme or fiiape ; in others which were neerer come to ripenes, 
liuing things that were very naked, in lhape like a birde : in 
others, the birds couered with foft downe, the lliell halfe open, 
and the birde readie to fall out, which no doubt were the foules 
called Barnakles.” 
