/ 
310 BRITISH BIRDS. 
rate thefe authors, or to quote the entertaining parts 
of the wild whimhes with which they have embel- 
liflied their defcriptions of thefe birds, would far ex^ 
ceed the limits of this work, and would only ferve* 
to prove (were that neceffary) how credulous, not 
only the great unthinking mafs, but even the phi- 
lofophers once were, and how far it was polTible for 
fuch circumftantially told miracles to lay the under- 
ftandings of mankind fail aileep. Bartholin difco- 
vered that thefe Goofe-bearing conches contained 
only a ihell-fiih of a particular kind, a fpecies of 
multivalve — the Poujfe-pieds of Wormius and Lobel^ 
and the Lepas Anatifera of Linnaeus. 
