PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
25 
in, and Gerard gives a plate of “ the Goose tree, Barnacle tree, 
or the tree bearing Geese,” and says that he declares “what 
our eies have seene, and our hands have touched.” 
A full account of the fable will be found in Harting’s 
“ Ornithology of Shakespeare,” p. 247, and an excellent account 
in Lee’s “ Sea Fables Explained ” (Fisheries Exhibition hand¬ 
books), p. 98. But neither of these writers have quoted the 
testimony of Sir John Mandeville, which is, however, well 
worth notice. When he was told in “ Caldilhe ” of a tree that 
bore “a lytylle Best in Flessche in Bon and Blode as though 
it were a lytylle Lomb, withouten Wolle,” he did not refuse to 
believe them, for he says, “ I tolde hem of als gret a marveylle 
to hem that is amonges us; and that was of the Bernakes. 
For I tolde hem, that in our Contree weren Trees, that beren 
a Fruyt, that becomen Briddes fleeynge; and tho that fallen in 
the Water lyven, and thei that fallen on the Erthe dyen anon; 
and thei ben right gode to mannes mete. And here of had 
thei als gret marvaylle that sume of hem trowed, it were an 
impossible thing to be” (“ Voiage and Travail]!,” c. xxvi.). 
3Bas (Trees. 
(1) ’Tis thought the King is dead ; we will not stay. 
The Bay-trees in our country are all wither’d. 
Richard II, ii. 4, 7 * 
(2) Marry come up, my dish of chastity with Rosemary and Bays ! 
Pericles , iv. 6, 159. 
(3) Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six personages, clad in white 
robes, wearing on their heads garlands of Bays, and golden vizards 
on their faces, branches of Bays or Palms in their hands .—Henry 
VIII, iv. 2. 
It is not easy to determine what tree is meant in these 
passages. In the first there is little doubt that Shakespeare 
copied from some Italian source the superstition that the Bay 
trees in a country withered and died when any great calamity 
