BERNICLE GOOSE or CLAKIS, the vernacular name for the Bernick of Ray, Anser Bernicla of Fleming ; the Bernicle, Barnacle Goose, and Barnacle Goose of authors. This bird affords an instance of the credulity with which those who in their generation were held wise and learned, accepted the most absurd traditions, and handed them down to posterity with the additional weight of their authority. A cirrhiped, a marine testaceous animal, the Pentelasmis anatifera of Leach, Anatifa leis of BruguiZres, Lepas anatifera of Linnwus, the Duck Barnacle of collectors, was long asserted to be the parent of the Bernicle Goose. This common shell is fixed to a long fleshy peduncle, and is frequently found attached to floating timber and even sea-weed. The tentacula, which proceed from the anterior opening of the valves, have an appearance that recalls to the mind of a casual inaccurate observer the recollection of a feather, and hence, in all probability, the fable took its origin. " Some," writes Nuttall, " even described these supposed embryos as fruits, in whose strncture already appeared the lineaments of a fowl, and which, being forthwith dropped into the sea, turned directly into birds. Munster, Saxe Grammaticus, and Scaliger even, asserted this absurdity. Fulgosus affirmed that the trees which bore these wonderful fruits resembled willows, producing at the ends of their branches small swelled babe containing the embryo of a duck, suspended by the bill, which when ripe fell off into the sea and took wing. Bishop Leslie, Torquemada, Oderieus, the Bishop Olaus Magnus, and a learned cardinal, all attested to the troth of their monstrous generation. Hence the bird has been called the Tree Goose, and one of the Orkneys, the scene of the prodigy, has received the appellation of Pomona." Not to weary the reader with names, and some of great reputation might be added, we will proceed to trace the fable as told by Gerard, merely adding by the way, that one of the other worthies is recorded to have opened 100 of the goose-bearing shells, and to have found in all of them the rudiments of the bird completely formed. Gerard,
then, as if determined that no sceptic should have the slightest ground whereon to rest a doubt, thus gives his evidence in his ' Herbal' :— " But what onr eyes have scene and hands have 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 unto certaine shells, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour ; wherein is contained a thing in form like a lace of silke finely woven as it were together, of a whitish colour ; one end whereof is fastened unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oisters and muskies are ; the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and form of a bird ; 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, till at length it is all come forth and hangeth only by the bill ; in short space after it eommeth to full maturitio, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard and lesser than goose, having blacks legs and bill or beake, and feathers black° and white, spotted in such manner as is our magpie, called in some places a pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose ; which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoining, do so much abound therewith, 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 testimouie of good witnesses." This edifying deposition is illustrated by a cut of the goose and of its parent shell.