Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/111

 opened one of the mussel-shells, and was "mair astonist than afore" to find no fish therein, but a perfectly-shaped "foule, smal and gret" as corresponded to the "quantity of the shell." And once again Boece draws the inference that the trees or wood on which the creatures are found have nothing to do with the origin of the birds; and that the fowls are begotten of the "occeane see, quhilk," concludes our author, "is the caus and production of mony wonderful thingis."

More than fifty years after the publication of Boece's "History," old Gerard of London, the famous "master in chirurgerie" of his day, gave an account of the barnacle-goose, and not only entered into minute particulars of its growth and origin, but illustrated its manner of production by means of the engraver's art of his day. Gerard's "Herball," published in 1597, thus contains, among much that is curious in medical lore, a very quaint piece of zoölogical history. He tells us that "in the north parts of Scotland, and the Hands adjacent, called Orchades (Orkneys)," are found "certaine trees, whereon doe growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet; wherein are conteined little living creatures: which shels in time of maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those little living foules whom we call Barnakles, in the north of England Brant Geese, and in Lancashire tree Geese; but the other that do fall upon the land, perish, and come to nothing: thus much by the writings of others, and also from the mouths of people of those parts, which may," concludes Gerard, "very well accord with truth."

Not content with hearsay evidence, however, Gerard relates what his eyes saw and hands touched. He describes how on the coasts of a certain "small Ilande in Lancashire called Pile of Foulders" (probably Peel Island), the wreckage of ships is cast up by the waves, along with the trunks and branches "of old and rotten trees." On these wooden rejectamenta "a certaine spume or froth" grows, according to Gerard. This spume "in time breedeth unto certaine shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour." This description, it may be remarked, clearly applies to the-barnacles themselves. Gerard then continues to point out how, when the shell is perfectly formed, it "gapeth open, and the first thing that appeereth is the foresaid lace or string"—the substance described by Gerard as contained within the shell—"next come the legs of the Birde hanging out; and as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come foorth, and hangeth only by the bill; in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a foule, bigger then a Mallard, and lesser than a Goose, having blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white. . . . which the people of Lancashire call by no other name then a tree Goose."

Accompanying this description is the engraving of the bernicle-tree,