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This barnacle-goose tree was a great article of faith with our ancestors in the Middle Ages. Gerarde, for example, in his History of Plants gives an illustration of it in all good faith-a branch bearing barnacles and by its side a barnacle goose. Following, however, the plan we have adopted throughout of going directly to the fountain-head, Gerarde shall give us his own description of this wonder of Nature. We may, however, point out before doing so that the error arose from a near resemblance of two distinct words suggesting that there must be an identity of nature in the things so named. A common kind of shell was in tie Middle Ages called pernacula, while the Solan-goose, in France called the barnache, " From the most refined of saints As naturally grow miscreants, As barnacles turn Solan-geese In the islands of the Orcades." Hudibras. was the bernacula. Both words being popularly corrupted into barnacle, it was natural that the two things should be considered as identical. Gerarde saves this crowning wonder until the end of his book, and then discourses as follows concerning it :-" Hauing trauelled from the grasses growing in the bottom of the fenny waters, the woods, and mountaines, euen vnto Libanus it selfe ; and also the sea, and bowels of the same, wee are arriued at the end of our Historie : thinking it not impertinent to the conclusion of the same, to end with one of the maruells of this land (we may say of the world). The historie whereof to set forth according to the worthinesse and raritie thereof would not only require a large and peculiar volume, but also a deeper search into the bowels of nature than mine intended purpose wil suffer me to wade into, my sufficience also considered ; leauing the historie thereof rough hewen unto some excellent men, learned in the secrets of nature, to be both fined and refined : in the meantime take it as it falleth out, the naked and bare truth, though vnpolished. There are found in the North parts of Scotland and the Island adiacient, called Orchades, certain trees whereon do grow certaine shells of a white colour tending to russet, wherein are contained little lining creatures, which shells in time of maturitie do open, and out of them do grow those little liuing things, which falling in the water do become fowles, which we call Barnakles ; in the North of England trant geese, and in Lancashire tree geese; but the other that do fall vpon 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 very well accord with truth. " But what our eyes have seene and hands haue touched we shall declare. There is a small Island in Lancashire called the pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof have been cast thither by Shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees cast up there likewise ; whereon is found a certain spume or froth that in time breedeth vnto certain shels in shape like those of the Muskle, but sharper pointed and of a whitish colour, wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely wouen as it were together, one end thereof is fastened vnto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and forme of a Birde. When it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string ; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees til at length it is all come forth and hangeth onely 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 fowle bigger than a Mallard and lesser than a goose, hauing blacke legs, and bill and beake, and feathers blacke and white spotted in such manner as is our magpie, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree goose : which place aforesaid and all those parts adoining do so mOch abound thereinth that one of the best is bought for (three pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses. " Moreover it would seeme that there is another sort hereof; the historie of which is true and of mine owne knowledge : for trauelling vpon the shore of our English coast betweene Douer and Rumney, I found the trunke of an olde rotten tree, which (with some helpe that I procured by. fishermen's wives that were there attending their husbands returne from the sea) we drew out of the water upon dry land : vpon this rotten tree I found growing many thousands of long; crimson bladders, in shape like vnto puddings newly filled, which were very clear and shining : at the nether end whereof did grow a shell fish fashioned somewhat like a small Muskle, but much whiter, resembling a shell fish that groweth vpon the rokes about Garnsey and Garsey, called a lympit. Many of these shells I brought with me to London, which after I had opened I found in them liuing things without form or shape : in others which were nearer come to ripeness I found liuing things that were very naked, shaped like a bird : in others the birds couered with soft downe, the shell halfe open and the bird ready to fall out, which no doubt were the fowler called Barnakles. I dare not absolutely avouch euery circumstance of the first part of this history concerning the tree that beareth those buds aforesaid, but will leave it to a further 'consideration, howbeit that which I have seen with mine eyes and handled with mine hands, I dare confidently avouch and boldly put down for veritie. "They spawn as it were in March and Aprille : the geese are formed in May and June and come to fulnesse of feathers in the moneth after. " And thus hauing through God's assistance discoursed somewhat at large of Grasses, Herbes, Shrubs, Trees, and Mosses, and certain Excrescences of the earth, with other things more incident to the historie thereof, we conclude and end our present volume with this wonder of England. For the which God's name be ever honored and praised." We extract the foregoing from the first edition of "Gerarde's Historie of Plants," published in 1597. After his death Thomas Johnson, "Citizen and Apothecarie of London," brought out another edition in 1633, and he adds the following note to Gerarde's statement : -" The Barnakle, whose fabulous breed my Author here sets downe, and diuers others haue also delieured, were found by some Hollanders to haue another originallt and that by egges, as other birds haue ; for they in their third voyage to finde out the North-East passage to China and the Moluccos about the eightieth degree and eleven minutes of Northerly latitude, found two little islands, in the one of which they found abundance of these geese sitting upon their egges, of which they got one goose and tooke a ay sixty egges." - Parkinson, in his " heater of Plants," published in 164o, gives a picture o a barnacle-tree growing by the sea-shore, and several 'geese swimming beneath it, at the end of the description of the 14th tribe of plants, " Marsh Water, and Sea Plants, with Mosses and Mushromes." Though the insertion of the woodcut, as our readers will see, would give one at a casual glance the impression that he was a believer, his comments are sufficiently indicative of his state of mind :-`° To finish this treatise of sea plants let me bring this admirable tale of untruth to your consideration, that whatever hath formerly beene related concerning the breeding of these Barnakles to be from steels growing on trees, &c:, is utterly erroneous, their breeding and hatching being found out by the Dutch and others in their navigations to the Northward, as that third of the Dutch in Anno 1536 doth declare." As Gerarde's book was published after the Dutch narrative, we can only conclude that he either had not seen it or that he is one more illustration of the old saying that "A man convinced against his will, remains the same opinion still." In Munster's Cosmography, a book which was several times reprinted between 1550 and 1570, we find an illus- tration of the wonderful goose-yielding tree, which we here reproduce in fac-simile. Munster discourses as follows on the matter :-" In Scotland are found trees, the fruit of which appears like a ball of leaves. This fruit, falling at its proper time into the water below, be-comes animated and turns to a bird which they call the tree-goose. This tree also grows in the island of Pomona, not far distant from Scotland towards the north." Saxo. Grammaticus, another old cosmographer, also mentions this tree. IEneas Syl 'us notices it too ; he says-" We have heard that ther. was a tree formerly in Scotland, . which growing by the margin of a stream produced fruit of the shape of ducks ,; that such fruit, when nearly ripe, fell, some into the water and some on land. Such as fell on land decayed, but such as fell into the water quickly became animated, swimming below, and then flying into the air with feathers and wings. When in Scotland, having made diligent enquiry concerning this Matter of King James, we found that the miracle always kept receding, as this wonderful tree is not found in Scotland but in the Orcadian isles." YEneas Sylvius, afterwards better known to the world as Pope Pius II., visited Scotland in the year 1448. His book is in the Latin tongue. William Turner, one of the earliest writers on Ornithology, describes the Bernacle goose as being produced from "something like a fungus growing from old wood lying in the sea." He quotes Giraldus Cambrensis as his authority for the statement, but says he, " As it seemed not safe to popular report, and as, on account of the singularity of the thing, I could not give entire credit to Giraldus, I, when thinking of the subject of which I now write, asked a certain clergyman, named Octavianus, by birth an Irishman, whom I knew to be worthy of credit, if he thought the account of Giraldus was to be believed. He swearing by the gospel, declared that what Giraldus had written about the generation of this bird was most true; that he had himself seen and handled the young unformed birds, and that if I should remain in London a month or two he would bring me some of the brood." In Lobel and Pena's " ° Stirpium Adversaria Nova," published in London in 1570, there is a figure of the "Britannica Concha Anatifera" growing on a stem from a rock, while beneath, in the water, ducks are swimming about. |