278 The Animal-Lore of Shahspeare’s Time. 
the relationship between the barnacle and its young. One 
error is hardly worse than the other. 
An early mention of the Booby, a bird closely allied 
to the G-annet or Solan goose, occurs in Sir 
ooby. Thomas Herbert’s Travels, 1626 (p. 9). The 
author, who was at that time cruising off the south coast 
of Africa, mentions that some boobies perched upon the 
yardarm of his ship, and suffered his men to capture 
them. He adds that the simplicity of this bird has 
become a proverb, and this statement proves that the 
booby was known to previous travellers. 
There was a strong tendency among early writers to 
give a generic name to all animals of a somewhat similar 
nature. Thus many large-horned beasts were called 
oxen, and many small close-furred animals, mice. The 
ichneumon was Pharaoh’s mouse ; the beaver was the 
Pontic dog ; the ostrich was called by classical writers the 
Libyan sparrow. In the following passage from Oviedo’s 
account of the West Indies, the name sparrow is given to 
a bird which was in all probability the booby:— 
“ There are other fowles called passere sempie —that is, simple 
sparrowes : these are somewhat lesse then seamewes, and have their 
feet like unto great malards, and stand in the water sometimes, and 
when the ships saile fiftie or a hundred leagues about the ilands, these? 
fowles beholding the ships coming toward them, breake their flight and. 
fall down upon the saile yards, masts, and cables thereof, and are so. 
simple and foolish, that they tarrie untill they may easily bee taken 
with mens hands, and were therefore called simple sparrows : they are 
blacke, and have upon their head and shoulders feathers of a darke 
russet colour, they are not good to bee eaten, although the mariners, 
have sometimes been forced to eate them.” ( Purchas , vol. iii. p. 980.)- 
Swans were, from all accounts, most abundant at this 
period. Paul Hentzner, in bis account of a 
journey to England in 1598, writes of the 
Thames 
“This river abounds in swans swimming in flocks, the sight of 
