Let us now go back to the twelfth century, and we shall find, in the time of Henry II. (1154–89), exactly the same story, and even then so firmly established that Giraldus Cambrensis found it necessary to protest against the custom then prevailing of eating these Barnacle geese during Lent, because they were not birds, but fishes. This is what Giraldus says in his "Topographia Hiberniæ:1—

"There are in this place many birds which are called Bernacæ: against nature, nature produces them in a most extraordinary way. They are like marsh-geese, but somewhat smaller. They are produced from fir timber tossed along the sea, and are at first like gum. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks as if from a seaweed attached to the timber, surrounded by shells, in order to grow more freely. Having thus, in process of time, been clothed with a strong coat of feathers, they either fall into

1 Silvester Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hiberniæ, in Anglica, Normannica. Hibernica, Cambrica, a veteribus scripta. Frankofurti, 1603, p. 706 (under Henry II., 1154–89).

"Sunt et aves hic multæ quæ Bernacæ vocantur: quas mirum in modum contra naturam natura producit: Aucis quidem palustribus similes, sed minores. Ex lignis namque abiegnis per æquora devolutis, primo quasi gummi nascuntur. Dehinc tamquam ab alga ligno cohærente conchylibus testis ad liberiorem formationem incluse, per rostra dependent: et sic quousque processu temporis firmam plumarum vestituram indutæ vel in aquas decidunt, vel in aëris libertatem volatu se transferunt, ex succo ligneo marinoque occulta nimis admirandaque seminii ratione alimenta simul incrementaque suscipiunt. Vidi multoties oculis meis plusquam mille minuta hujusmodi avium corpuscula, in littore maris ab uno ligno dependentia testis inclusa et jam formata. Non ex harum coitu (ut in avibus assolet) ova gignuntur, non avis in earum procreatione unquam ovis incubat: in nullis terrarum angulis vel libidini vacare vel nidificare videntur. Unde et in quibusdam Hiberniæ partibus, avibus istis tamquam non carneis quia de carne non natis, episcopi et viri religiosi jejuniorum tempore sine delictu vesci solent. Sed hi quidem scrupulose moventur ad delictum. Si quis enim ex primi parentis carnei quidem, licet de carne non nati, femore comedisset, eum a carnium esu non immunem arbitrarer."

the water or fly freely away into the air. They derive their food and growth from the sap of the wood or the sea, by a secret and most wonderful process of alimentation. I have frequently, with my own eyes, seen more than a thousand of these small bodies of birds, hanging down on the sea-shore from one piece of timber, enclosed in shells, and already forined. They do not breed and lay eggs, like other birds; nor do they ever hatch any eggs; nor do they seem to build nests in any corner of the earth. Hence bishops and clergymen in some parts of Ireland do not scruple to dine off these birds at the time of fasting, because they are not flesh, nor born of flesh. But these are thus drawn into sin; for if a man during Lent had dined off a leg of Adam, our first parent, who was not born of flesh, surely we should not consider him innocent of having eaten what is flesh."

Then follows more to the same effect, which we

may safely leave out. What is important is this, that in the twelfth century the belief in the miraculous transformation of the Barnacle-shell into the Barnacle-goose was as firmly established as in the seventeenth century; and that on that belief another belief had grown up, namely, that Barnacle-geese might safely be eaten during Lent.

How long before Giraldus the fable existed, I cannot tell; but it must not be supposed that, during the five centuries through which we have traced its existence, it was never contradicted. It was contradicted by Albertus Magnus (died 1280), who declares that he saw these birds lay eggs and hatch them.1 1 Barbates mentiendo quidam dicunt aves: quas vulgus bonngas (baum

It was contradicted by Roger Bacon (died 1294). Eneas Sylvius1 (afterwards Pope Pius II., 1458-64), when on a visit to King James (1393-1437; reigned 1424-37), inquired after the tree, and he complains that miracles will always flee farther and farther; for when he came to Scotland to see the tree, he was told that it grew farther north in the Orchades. In 1599, Dutch sailors, who had visited Greenland, gave a full description of how they found there the eggs of the Barnacle-geese (whom they in Dutch called rotgansen); how they saw them hatching, and heard them cry rot, rot, rot; how they killed one of them with a stone, and ate it, together with sixty eggs.2

Nevertheless, the story appeared again and again, and the birds continued to be eaten by the priests during Lent without any qualms of conscience, Aldrovandus, in his "Ornithologia," 1603, (lib. xix.), gans?) vocat: eo quod ex arboribus nasci dicuntur a quibus stipite et ramis dependent: et succo qui inter corticem est nutritæ: dicunt etiam aliquando ex putridis lignis hæc animalia in mari generari: et præcipue ex abietum putredine, afferentes quod nemo unquam vidit has aves coire vel ovare: et hoc omnino absurdum est: quia ego et multi mecum de sociis vidimus eas et coire et ovare et pullos nutrire sicut in ante habitis diximus: hæc avis caput habet quasi pavonis. Pedes autem nigros ut cygnus: et sunt membrana conjuncti digiti ad natandum: et sunt in dorso cinerea nigredinis: et in ventre subalbidæ, aliquantum minores anseribus." - De Animalibus, lib. xxiii. p. 186.

1 "Scribit tamen Eneas Sylvius de hac arbore in hunc modum: 'Audiveramus nos olim arborem esse in Scotia, quæ supra ripam fluminis enata fructus produceret, anetarum formam habentes, et eos quidem cum mataritati proximi essent sponte sua decidere, alios in terram, alios in aquam, et in terram dejectos putrescere, in aquam vero demersos, mox animatos enatare sub aquis et in ærem plumis pennisque evolare. De qua re cum avidius investigaremus dum essemus in Scotia apud Jacobum regem, hominem quadratum et multa pinguedine gravem, didicimus miracula semper remotius fugere, famosamque arborem non in Scotia, sed apud Orchades insulas inveniri.' "— Seb. Munster, Cosmographia, p. 49.

2 Truis Narigations fuites par les Hollandais au Septentrion, par Gerard de Vora. Paris, 1599, p. 112.

tells us of an Irish priest, of the name of Octavianus, who assured him with an oath on the Gospel that he had seen the birds in their rude state and handled them. And Aldrovandus himself, after weighing all the evidence for and against the miraculous origin of the Barnacle-goose, arrives at the conclusion that it is better to err with the majority than to argue against so many eminent writers.1 In 1629 a Count Maier published at Frankfort a book, "De Volucri Arborea" (On the Tree-bird), in which he explains the whole process of its birth, and indulges in some most absurd and blasphemous speculations.2

But how did this extraordinary story arise? Why

should anybody ever have conceived the idea that a bird was produced from a shell; and this particular

1 "Malim tamen cum pluribus errare quam tot scriptoribus clarissimis oblatrare quibus præter id quod de ephemero dictum est, favet etiam quod est ab Aristotele proditum, genus scilicet testatum quoddam navigiis putrescente fæce spumosa adnasci." (P. 173, line 47).

2 The fourth chapter has the following heading: "Quod finis proprius hujus volucris generationis sit ut referat duplici suâ naturâ, vegetabili et animali, Christum Deum et hominem, qui quoque sine patre et matre, ut ille, existit."

bird, the Barnacle-goose, from this particular shell, the Barnacle-shell? If the story was once started, there are many things that would keep it alive; and its vitality has certainly been extraordinary. There are certain features about this Barnacle-shell which to a careless observer might look like the first rudiments of a bird; and the feet, in particular, with which these animals catch their food and convey it into the shell, are decidedly like very delicate feathers. The fact, again, that this fable of the shell-geese offered an excuse for eating these birds during Lent would, no doubt, form a strong support of the common belief, and invest it, to a certain extent, with a sacred character. In Bombay, where, with some classes of people, fish is considered a prohibited article of food, the priests call it sea-vegetable, under which name it is allowed to be eaten. No one would suspect Linnæus of having shared the vulgar error; nevertheless, he retained the name of anatifera, or duck-bearing, as given to the shell, and that of Bernicla, as given to the goose.

I believe it was language which first suggested this myth. We saw that the shells were regularly and properly called bernacula. We also saw that the Barnacle-geese were caught in Ireland. It was against the Irish bishops that Giraldus Cambrensis wrote, blaming them for their presumption in eating these birds during Lent; and we learn from later. sources that the discovery made by the Irish priests was readily adopted in France. Now Ireland is called Hibernia; and I believe these birds were originally called Hibernica, or Hiberniculæ. The first syllable was dropped, as not having the accent,