Chapter VII: Part 7

This "paper-sailor," then, whom the poets have regarded as endowed with so much grace and beauty, and living in luxurious ease, is but a fine lady octopus after all. Turn her out of her handsome residence, and, instead of the fairy skimmer of the seas, you have before you an object apparently as free from loveliness and romance as her sprawling, uncanny-looking, relative. Instead of floating in her pleasure boat over the surface of the sea, the argonaut ordinarily crawls along the bottom, carrying her shell above her, keel uppermost; and the broad extremities of the two arms are not hoisted as sails, nor allowed when at rest to dangle over the side of the "boat;" but are used as a kind of hood by which the animal retains the shell in its proper position, as a man bearing a load on his shoulders holds it with his hands. When she comes to the surface, or progresses by swimming instead of walking, she does so in the same manner as the octopus: namely, by the forcible expulsion of water from her funnel-like tube.

But if truth compels us to deprive her of the counterfeit halo conferred on her by poets, we can award her, on behalf of science, a far nobler crown; namely, that of the Queen of the whole great Invertebrate Animal Kingdom. For, the _Cephalopoda_, of which the argonaut is a highly organised member, are not only the highest in their own division, the _Mollusca_, but they are as far superior to all other animals which have no backbones, as man stands lord and king over all created beings that possess them.

Although in outward shape the spiral shell of the Pearly Nautilus (_Nautilus pompilius_) somewhat resembles that of the argonaut, its internal structure is very different. A section of it shows that it is divided into several chambers, each of which is partitioned off from the adjoining ones, the last formed or external one, in which the animal lives, being much larger than the rest. The object and mode of construction of these chambers is as follows. As the animal grows, a constant secretion of new material takes place on the edge of the shell. By this unceasing process of the addition of new shell in the form of a circular curve or coil around the older portion, the whole rapidly increases in size, both in diameter, and in the length of the chamber. The Nautilus, requiring to keep the secreting portion of its mantle applied to the lip of the shell, finds the chamber in which it dwells gradually becoming inconveniently long for it, and therefore builds up a wall behind itself, and continues its work of enlarging its premises in front. Each of these walls, concave in front, towards the mouth of the shell, and concave behind, acts as a strong girder and support of the arch of the shell against the inward pressure of deep water: and it was formerly supposed that each successive chamber so constructed and vacated remained filled with air, and _thus_ became an additional float by which the constantly increasing weight of the growing shell was counter-balanced. By this beautiful adjustment of augmented floating power to increased weight, the buoyancy of the shell would be secured and its specific gravity maintained as nearly as possible equal to that of the surrounding water. This adjustment does probably take place, but in a somewhat different manner. As the Nautilus inhabits a depth of from twenty to forty fathoms, it is evident that the air within its shell would be displaced by the pressure of such a column of water.[79] Accordingly, in every instance of the capture of a Nautilus the chambers of its shell have been found filled with water. It is not improbable that the fluid they contain may be less compressed, and exert less pressure from within outwards than that of the external superincumbent column of water, and that by this unbalanced pressure--under the same hydro-dynamic law which governs its mode of self-propulsion when swimming, and possibly in some degree within the control of the animal--the latter is relieved of much of the weight of its shell. When the Nautilus is at the bottom of the sea its movement is like that of a snail crawling along upon the ground with its shell above it. The shell, in proportion to the size of the animal that inhabits it, is a heavy one, and unless it were rendered semi-buoyant, its owner's strength would be severely taxed by the effort to drag it along. By the means indicated this portable domicile is borne lightly above the body of the Nautilus, without in any way impeding its progress.

[79] "At 100 fathoms the pressure exceeds 265 lbs. to the square
inch. Empty bottles, securely corked, and sunk with weights beyond
100 fathoms, are always crushed. If filled with liquid the cork is
driven in, and the liquid replaced by salt water; and in drawing
the bottle up again the cork is returned to the neck of the bottle,
generally in a reversed position."--Sir F. Beaufort, quoted by Dr.
S. P. Woodward in his 'Manual of the Mollusca.'

_a a_, Partitions; _b b_, chambers; _b'_, the last-formed chamber, in which the animal lives; _c c_, the siphuncle; _d_, attaching muscle; _e e_, the hollow arms; _f f_, retractile tentacles; _g_, muscular disk, or foot; _h_, the eye; _i_, position of funnel.]

The chambers are all connected by a membranous tube slightly coated with nacre, which is connected with a large sac in the body of the animal, near the heart, and passes through a circular orifice and a short projecting tube in the centre of each partition wall, till it ends in the smallest chamber at the inner extremity of the shell. Dean Buckland believed this "syphon" to be an hydraulic apparatus acting as a "fine adjustment" of the specific gravity of the shell, by admitting water within it when expanded, and excluding it when contracted. As it contains an artery and vein near its origin at the mantle, Professor Owen has regarded it as subservient to the maintenance of a low vitality in the vacated portion of the shell. Dr. Henry Woodward is of the opinion that, whilst in the early life of the Nautilus this siphuncle forms the main point of attachment between the animal and its shell, it is in the adult "simply an aborted embryonal organ whose function is now filled by the shell-muscles, but which in the more ancient and straight-shelled representatives of the group (the Orthoceratites) was not merely an embryonal but an important organ in the adult."

Every one knows the shell of the Pearly Nautilus. It may be purchased at any shell-shop in a seaside watering-place, and is imported by hundreds every year from Singapore.[80] It is abundant in the waters of the Indian Archipelago, especially about the Molucca and Philippine Islands, and on the shores of New Caledonia and the Fiji and Solomon Islands. It has also been found alive on Pemba Island, near Zanzibar. It seems strange, therefore, that until about half a century ago hardly anything was known of the animal that secretes and inhabits it. Rumphius, a Dutch naturalist, in his 'Rarities of Amboyna,' published, in 1705, a description of one with an engraving, incorrect in drawing, and deficient in detail; and until 1832 this was the only information which existed concerning it. The great Cuvier never saw one, and being acquainted only with the two-gilled cephalopods, he regarded the head-footed mollusks as absolutely isolated from all other animals in the kingdom of nature, even from the other classes of the mollusca. It seemed, however, to Professor Owen, then only nineteen years of age, that in the only living representative of the four-gilled order, _Nautilus pompilius_, might be found the "missing link." When, therefore, in the year 1824, his fellow-student, Mr. George Bennett, was about to sail from England to the Polynesian Islands, young Richard Owen earnestly charged his friend to do his utmost to obtain, and bring home in alcohol, a specimen of the much-coveted Pearly Nautilus. The opportunity did not occur till one warm and calm Monday evening, the 24th of August, 1829, when a living Nautilus was seen at the surface of the water not far distant from the ship, in Marekini Bay, on the south-west coast of the Island of Erromango, New Hebrides, in the South Pacific Ocean. It looked like a dead tortoise-shell cat, as the sailors said. As it began to sink as soon as it was observed, it was struck at with a boat-hook, and was thus so much injured that it died shortly after being taken on board the ship. The shell was destroyed, but the soft body of the animal was preserved in spirits, and great was the joy of Mr. Owen when, in July, 1831, Mr. Bennett arrived with it in England, and presented it to the Royal College of Surgeons. Mr. Owen was then Assistant-Conservator of the Museum of the College under Mr. Clift, who was afterwards his father-in-law. He immediately commenced to anatomise, describe, and figure his rare acquisition, and in the early part of 1832 published the result of his work in the form of a masterly treatise, which proved to be the foundation of his future fame.[81]

[80] I need hardly say that before the nacreous layer of the shell
from which this animal takes its name is made visible, an outer
deposit of dense calcareous matter has to be removed by
hydrochloric acid: the pearly surface thus exposed is then easily
polished.

[81] It is so interesting to most of us to know something of the
early work of our greatest men, and of the tide in their affairs,
which, taken at the flood, led on to fortune, that I hope I may be
excused for referring to the period when the distinguished chief of
the Natural History Department of the British Museum, the great
comparative anatomist, the unrivalled palaeontologist, the
illustrious physiologist, the venerable and venerated friend of all
earnest students, was beginning to attract the attention, and to
receive the approbation of his seniors as a promising young worker.
In Messrs. Griffith and Pidgeon's Supplement to Cuvier's 'Mollusca
and Radiata,' published in 1834, the treatise in question is thus
mentioned: "We have much pleasure in referring to a most excellent
memoir on _Nautilus pompilius_, by Mr. Owen, with elaborate figures
of the animal, its shell, and various parts, published by direction
of the Council of the College of Surgeons. The reader will find the
most satisfactory information on the subject, and the scientific
public will earnestly hope that the present volume will be the
first of a similar series." This hope has been more than fulfilled.
Dean Buckland, in his 'Bridgewater Treatise,' wrote of this work:
"I rejoice in the present opportunity of bearing testimony to the
value of Professor Owen's highly philosophical and most admirable
memoir--a work not less creditable to the author than honourable to
the Royal College of Surgeons, under whose auspices the publication
has been so handsomely conducted."

Mr. Owen's investigations confirmed his previous supposition that the Pearly Nautilus is inferior in its organisation to octopus, sepia, or any other known cephalopod; that it is not isolated, but that it recedes towards the gasteropods, to which belong the snail, the periwinkle, &c., and that in some of its characters its structure is analogously related to the still lower _annulosa_, or worms. Mr. Owen was just about to start for Paris with the intention of presenting a copy of his book to his celebrated contemporary and friend, and of showing him his dissections of the Nautilus which had been the subject of his research, when he heard of Baron Cuvier's death. It must have been to him a great sorrow and a grievous disappointment.

The Pearly Nautilus, then, is a true cephalopod, in that it has its foot divided and arranged in segments around its head, but the form and number of these segments are very different from those of any other of its class. Instead of there being eight, as in the argonaut and octopus, or ten, as in sepia and the calamaries, the Nautilus has about ninety projecting in every direction from around the mouth. They are short, round, and tapering, of about the length and thickness of the fingers of a child. Some of them are retractile into sheaths, and they are attached to fleshy processes (which might represent the child's hand), overlying each other, and covering the mouth on each side. They have none of the suckers with which the arms and tentacles of all the other cuttles are furnished, but their annulose structure, like the rings of an earthworm's body, gives them some little prehensile power. None of these numerous finger-like segments of the foot are flattened out like the broad membranous expansions of the argonaut, and, in fact, the Nautilus is without any members which can possibly be regarded as sails to hoist, or as oars with which to row. It has a strong beak, like the rest of the cuttles; but it has no ink-sac, for its shell is strong enough to afford it the protection which its two-gilled relatives have to seek in concealment.

The Pearly Nautilus usually creeps, like a snail, along the bed of the sea. It lives at the bottom, and feeds at the bottom, principally on crabs; and, as Dr. S. P. Woodward says, in his 'Manual of the Mollusca,' "perhaps often lies in wait for them, like some gigantic sea-anemone, with outspread tentacles." The shape of its shell is not well adapted for swimming, but it can ascend to the surface, if it so please, in the same manner as can all the cuttles--namely, by the outflow of water from its locomotor tube. The statement that it visits the surface of the sea of its own accord is at present, however, unconfirmed by observation.

But, if the Pearly Nautilus is the inferior and poor relation of the argonaut, it lives in a handsome house, and comes of an ancient lineage. The Ammonites, whose beautiful whorled and chambered shells, and the casts of them, are so abundant in every stratum, especially in the lias, the chalk, and the oolite, had four gills also. These Ammonites and the Nautili were amongst the earliest occupants of the ancient deep; and, with the Hamites, Turrilites, and others, lived upon our earth during a great portion of the incalculable period which has elapsed since it became fitted for animal existence, and in their time witnessed the rise and fall of many an animal dynasty. But they are gone now; and only the fossil relics of more than two thousand species (of which 188 were Nautili) remain to tell how important a race they were amongst the inhabitants of the old world seas. They and their congeners of the chambered shells, however, left one representative which has lived on through all the changes that have taken place on the surface of this globe since they became extinct--namely, _Nautilus pompilius_, the Nautilus of the pearly shell--the last of the Tetrabranchs.

I need offer no apology for endeavouring to explain the difference between the Nautilus of the chambered shell and the argonaut with the membranous arms which it was supposed to use as sails, when Webster, in his great standard dictionary, describes the one and figures the other as one and the same animal; and when a writer of the celebrity of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes also blends the two in the following poem, containing a sentiment as exquisite as its science is erroneous. I hope the latter distinguished and accomplished author, whose delightful writings I enjoy and highly appreciate, will pardon my criticism. I admit that the beauty of the thought might well atone for its inaccuracy, (of which the author is conscious,) were it not that the latter is made so attractive that truth appears harsh in disturbing it.

"THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS."

"This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign
Sails the unshadowed main,
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings,
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl,
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim, dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap forlorn!
From the dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--

'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low vaulted past;
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.'"

BARNACLE GEESE--GOOSE BARNACLES.

The belief that some wild geese, instead of being hatched from eggs, like other birds, grew on trees and rotten wood has never been surpassed as a specimen of ignorant credulity and persistent error.

There are two principal versions of this absurd notion. One is that certain trees, resembling willows, and growing always close to the sea, produced at the ends of their branches fruit in form like apples, and each containing the embryo of a goose, which, when the fruit was ripe, fell into the water and flew away. The other is that the geese were bred from a fungus growing on rotten timber floating at sea, and were first developed in the form of worms in the substance of the wood.

When and whence this improbable theory had its origin is uncertain. Aristotle does not mention it, and consequently Pliny and AElian were deprived of the pleasure they would have felt in handing down to posterity, without investigation or correction, a statement so surprising. It is, comparatively, a modern myth; although we find that it was firmly established in the middle of the twelfth century, for Gerald de Barri, known in literature as Giraldus Cambrensis, mentions it in his 'Topographia Hiberniae,' published in 1187. Giraldus, who was Archdeacon of Brecknock in the reign of Henry II., and tried hard, more than once, for the bishopric of St. David's, the functions of which he had temporarily administered without obtaining the title, was a vigorous and zealous reformer of Church abuses. Amongst the laxities of discipline against which he found it necessary to protest was the custom then prevailing of eating these Barnacle geese during Lent, under the plea that their flesh was not that of birds, but of fishes. He writes:--

"There are here many birds which are called Bernacae, which nature
produces in a manner contrary to nature, and very wonderful. They
are like marsh-geese but smaller. They are produced from fir-timber
tossed about at sea, and are at first like geese upon it.
Afterwards they hang down by their beaks, as if from a sea-weed
attached to the wood, and are enclosed in shells that they may grow
the more freely. Having thus, in course of time, been clothed with
a strong covering of feathers, they either fall into the water, or
seek their liberty in the air by flight. The embryo geese derive
their growth and nutriment from the moisture of the wood or of the
sea, in a secret and most marvellous manner. I have seen with my
own eyes more than a thousand minute bodies of these birds hanging
from one piece of timber on the shore, enclosed in shells and
already formed. Their eggs are not impregnated _in coitu_, like
those of other birds, nor does the bird sit upon its eggs to hatch
them, and in no corner of the world have they been known to build a
nest. Hence the bishops and clergy in some parts of Ireland are in
the habit of partaking of these birds on fast days, without
scruple. But in doing so they are led into sin. For, if any one
were to eat of the leg of our first parent, although he (Adam) was
not born of flesh, that person could not be adjudged innocent of
eating flesh."

This fable of the geese appears, however, to have been current at least a hundred years before Giraldus wrote, for Professor Max Muller, who treats of it in one of his "Lectures on the Science of Language," amongst many interesting references there given, quotes a Cardinal of the eleventh century, Petrus Damianus, who clearly describes, that version of it which represents the birds as bursting, when fully fledged, from fruit resembling apples.

It is a curious fact that these Barnacle geese have troubled the priesthood of more than one creed as to the instructions they should give to the laity concerning the use of them as food. The Jews--all those, at least, who maintain a strict observance of the Hebrew Law--eat no meat but that of animals which have been slaughtered in a certain prescribed manner; and a doubt arose amongst them at the period we refer to, whether these geese should be killed as flesh or as fish. Professor Max Muller cites Mordechai,[82] as asking whether these birds are fruits, fish, or flesh; that is, whether they must be killed in the Jewish way, as if they were flesh. Mordechai describes them as birds which grow on trees, and says, "the Rabbi Jehuda, of Worms (who died 1216) used to say that he had heard from his father, Rabbi Samuel, of Speyer (about 1150), that Rabbi Jacob Tham, of Rameru (who died 1171), the grandson of the great Rabbi Rashi (about 1140), had decided that they must be killed as flesh."

[82] Riva, 1559, leaf 142.

Pope Innocent III. took the same view; for at the Lateran Council, in 1215, he prohibited the eating of Barnacle geese during Lent. In 1277, Rabbi Izaak, of Corbeil, determined to be on the safe side, forbade altogether the eating of these birds by the Jews, "because they were neither flesh nor fish."

Michael Bernhard Valentine,[83] quoting Wormius, says that this question caused much perplexity and disputation amongst the doctors of the Sorbonne; but that they passed an ordinance that these geese should be classed as fishes, and not as birds; and he adds, that in consequence of this decision large numbers of these birds were annually sent to Paris from England and Scotland, for consumption in Lent. Sir Robert Sibbald[84] refers to this, and says that Normandy was the locality from which the French capital was reported to be principally supplied; but that in fact the greater number of these geese came from Holland. The date of this edict is not given.

[83] 'Historia Simplicium,' lib. iii. p. 327.

[84] Prodrom. Hist. Nat. Scot. parts 2, lib. iii. p. 21, 1684.

Professor Max Muller says that in Brittany, Barnacle geese are still allowed to be eaten on Fridays, and that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ferns may give permission to people out of his diocese to eat these birds at his table.

In Bombay, also, where fish is prohibited as food to some classes of the population, the priests call this goose a "sea-vegetable," under which name it is allowed to be eaten.

Various localities were mentioned as the breeding-places of these arboreal geese. Gervasius of Tilbury,[85] writing about 1211, describes the process of their generation in full detail, and says that great numbers of them grew in his time upon the young willow trees which abounded in the neighbourhood of the Abbey of Faversham, in the county of Kent, and within the Archiepiscopate of Canterbury. The bird was there commonly called the _Barneta_.

[85] Otia Imperialia, iii. 123.

Hector Boethius, or Boece, the old Scottish historian, combats this version of the story. His work, written in Latin, in 1527, was translated into quaint Scottish in 1540, by John Bellenden, Archdeacon of Murray. In his fourteenth chapter, "Of the nature of claik geis, and of the syndry maner of thair procreatioun, and of the ile of Thule," he says:--

"Restis now to speik of the geis generit of the see namit clakis.
Sum men belevis that thir clakis growis on treis be the nebbis. Bot
thair opinioun is vane. And becaus the nature and procreatioun of
thir clakis is strange we have maid na lytyll laubore and deligence
to serche ye treuth and verite yairof, we have salit throw ye seis
quhare thir clakis ar bred, and I fynd be gret experience, that the
nature of the seis is mair relevant caus of thir procreatioun than
ony uther thyng."

From the circumstances attending the finding of "ane gret tree that was brocht be alluvion and flux of the see to land, in secht of money pepyll besyde the castell of Petslego, in the yeir of God ane thousand iiii. hundred lxxxx, and of a see tangle hyngand full of mussill schellis," brought to him by "Maister Alexander Galloway, person of Kynkell," who knowing him to be "richt desirus of sic uncouth thingis came haistely with the said tangle," he arrives at the conclusion, by a process of reasoning highly satisfactory and convincing to himself, that,

"Be thir and mony othir resorcis and examplis we can not beleif
that thir clakis ar producit be ony nature of treis or rutis
thairof, but allanerly be the nature of the Oceane see, quhilk is
the caus and production of mony wonderful thingis. And becaus the
rude and ignorant pepyl saw oftymes the fruitis that fel of the
treis (quhilkis stude neir the see) convertit within schort tyme in
geis, thai belevit that thir geis grew apon the treis hingand be
thair nebbis sic lik as appillis and uthir frutis hingis be thair
stalkis, bot thair opinioun is nocht to be sustenit. For als sone
as thir appillis or frutis fallis of the tre in the see flude thay
grow first wormeetin. And be schort process of tyme are alterat in
geis."

In describing the bird thus produced, Boethius declares that the male has a sharp, pointed beak, like the gallinaceous birds, but that in the female the beak is obtuse as in other geese and ducks.

According to other authors, this wonderful production of birds from living or dead timber was not confined to England and Scotland. Vincentius Bellovacensis[86] (1190-1264) in his 'Speculum Naturae,' xvii. 40, states that it took place in Germany, and Jacob de Vitriaco (who died 1244) mentions its occurrence in certain parts of Flanders.

[86] For this quotation and the following one I am indebted to
Professor Max Muller's Lecture before referred to.

Jonas Ramus gives a somewhat different version of the process as it occurs in Norway. He writes:[87] "It is said that a particular sort of geese is found in Nordland, which leave their seed on old trees, and stumps and blocks lying in the sea; and that from that seed there grows a shell fast to the trees, from which shell, as from an egg, by the heat of the sun, young geese are hatched, and afterwards grow up; which gave rise to the fable that geese grow upon trees."

[87] 'Chorographical Description of Norway,' p. 244.

But, strange to say, if any painstaking enquirer, wishing to investigate the matter for himself, went to a locality where it was said the phenomenon regularly occurred, he was sure to find that he had literally, "started on a wild-goose chase," and had come to the wrong place. This was the experience of AEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., who complained that miracles will always flee farther and farther away; for when he was on a visit (about 1430) to King James I., of Scotland,[88] and enquired after the tree which he most eagerly desired to see, he was told that it grew much farther north, in the Orkney Islands.

[88] AEneas Sylvius gives us information concerning the personal
appearance of his royal host, whom he describes as, "_hominem
quadratum et multa pinguedine gravem_,"--literally, "a square-built
man, heavy with much fat."

Notwithstanding the suspicious fact that the prodigy receded like Will o' the Wisp, whenever it was persistently followed up, Sebastian Munster, who relates[89] the foregoing anecdote of AEneas Sylvius, appears to have entertained no doubt of the truth of the report, for he writes:--

[89] 'Cosmographia Universalis,' p. 49, 1572.

]

[90] The original of this picture is a small wood-cut in Matthias
de Lobel's 'Stirpium Historia,' published in 1870. The birds within
the shells were added by Gerard. Aldrovandus, in copying it, gave
leaves to the tree, as shown on page 110.

"In Scotland there are trees which produce fruit, conglomerated of
their leaves; and this fruit, when in due time it falls into the
water beneath it, is endowed with new life, and is converted into a
living bird, which they call the 'tree-goose.' This tree grows in
the Island of Pomonia, which is not far from Scotland, towards the
north. Several old cosmographers, especially Saxo Grammaticus,
mention the tree, and it must not be regarded as fictitious, as
some new writers suppose."

Julius Caesar Scaliger[91] (1540) gives another reading of the legend, in which it is asserted that the leaves which fall from the tree into the water are converted into fishes, and those which fall upon the land become birds.

[91] Exercit. 59, sect. 2.

Thus this extraordinary belief held sway, and remained strong and invincible, although from time to time some man of sense and independent thought attempted to turn the tide of popular error. Albertus Magnus (who died 1280) showed its absurdity, and declared that he had seen the bird referred to lay its eggs and hatch them in the ordinary way. Roger Bacon (who died in 1294) also contradicted it, and Belon, in 1551, treated it with ridicule and contempt. Olaus Wormius[92] seems to have believed in it, though he wrote cautiously about it. Olaus Magnus (1553) mentions it, and apparently accepts it as a fact, occurring in the Orkneys, on the authority of "a Scotch historian who diligently sets down the secrets of things," and then dismisses it in three lines.

[92] 'Museum,' p. 257.

Passing over many other writers on the subject, we come to the time of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when (in 1597) "John Gerarde, Master in Chirurgerie, London," published his "Herball, or Generall Historie of Plants gathered by him," and in the last chapter thereof solemnly declared, that he had actually witnessed the transformation of "certaine shell fish" into Barnacle Geese, as follows.

_Of the Goose tree, Barnacle tree, or the tree bearing Geese._

_Britanicae Conchae anatiferae._

THE BREED OF BARNACLES.

¶ _The Description._

Hauing trauelled from the Grasses growing in the bottome of the
fenny waters, the Woods, and mountaines, euen vnto Libanus itselfe;
and also the sea, and bowels of the same, wee are arriued at the
end of our History; thinking it not impertinent to the conclusion
of the same, to end with one of the maruels of this land (we may
say of the World). The history 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, then my intended purpose will suffer me to wade into, my
sufficiencie also considered; leauing the History thereof rough
hewen, vnto some excellent man, learned in the secrets of nature,
to be both fined and refined; in the meane space take it as it
falleth out, the naked and bare truth, though vnpolished. There are
found in the North parts of Scotland and the Islands adjacent,
called Orchades, certaine trees whereon do grow certaine shells of
a white colour tending to russet, wherein are contained little
liuing creatures: which shells in time of maturity doe open, and
out of them grow those little liuing things, which falling into the
water do become fowles, which we call Barnacles; in the North of
England, brant 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 mouthes of people of
those parts, which may very well accord with truth.

But what our eies haue 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 haue beene cast thither by shipwracke, and also
the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees,
cast vp there likewise; whereon is found a certaine spume or froth
that in time breedeth vnto certaine shells, 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, of a whitish colour, one end whereof is fastened
vnto the inside of the shell, euen as the fish of Oisters and
Muskles are: the other end is made fast vnto the belly of a rude
masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and forme 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, 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 or beake, and feathers
blacke 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 adjoyning 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 vnto me, and I shall satisfie them by
the testimonie of good witnesses.

Moreover, it should seeme that there is another sort hereof; the
History 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 old rotten tree, which (with some
helpe that I procured by Fishermen's wiues that were there
attending their husbands' returne from the sea) we drew out of the
water vpon dry land; vpon this rotten tree I found growing many
thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape like vnto puddings
newly filled, before they be sodden, which were very cleere 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 rockes 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 forme or
shape; in others which were neerer come to ripenesse I found liuing
things that were very naked, in shape 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 Fowles called Barnacles.
I dare not absolutely auouch euery circumstance of the first part
of this history, concerning the tree that beareth those buds
aforesaid, but will leaue it to a further consideration; howbeit,
that which I haue seene with mine eies, and handled with mine
hands, I dare confidently auouch, and boldly put downe for verity.
Now if any will object that this tree which I saw might be one of
those before mentioned, which either by the waues of the sea or
some violent wind had beene ouerturned as many other trees are; or
that any trees falling into those seas about the Orchades, will of
themselves bear the like Fowles, by reason of those seas and
waters, these being so probable conjectures, and likely to be true,
I may not without prejudice gainsay, or endeauour to confute.

¶ _The Place._

The bordes and rotten plankes whereon are found these shels
breeding the Barnakle, are taken vp in a small Island adioyning to
Lancashire, halfe a mile from the main land, called the Pile of
Foulders.

¶ _The Time._

They spawn as it were in March and Aprill; 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 certaine
Excrescenses of the Earth, with other things moe, incident to the
historie thereof, we conclude and end our present Volume, with this
wonder of England. For the which God's name be euer honored and
praised.

Gerard was probably a good botanist and herbalist; but Thomas Johnson, the editor of a subsequent issue of his book, tells us that

"He, out of a propense good will to the publique advancement of
this knowledge, endeavoured to performe therein more than he could
well accomplish, which was partly through want of sufficient
learning; but," he adds, "let none blame him for these defects,
seeing he was neither wanting in pains nor good will to performe
what hee intended: and there are none so simple but know that
heavie burthens are with most paines vndergone by the weakest men;
and although there are many faults in the worke, yet iudge well of
the Author; for, as a late writer well saith:--'To err and to be
deceived is human, and he must seek solitude who wishes to live
only with the perfect.'"

It is difficult to comply with the request to think well of one who, writing as an authority, deliberately promulgated, with an affectation of piety, that which he must have known to be untrue, and who was, moreover, a shameless plagiarist; for Gerard's ponderous book is little more than a translation of Dodonaeus, whole chapters having been taken verbatim from that comparatively unread author without acknowledgment.

After this series of erroneous observations, self-delusion, and ignorant credulity, it is refreshing to turn to the pages of the two little thick quarto volumes of Gaspar Schott.[93] This learned Jesuit made himself acquainted with everything that had been written on the subject, and besides the authors I have referred to, quotes and compares the statements of Majolus, Abrahamus Ortelius, Hieronymus Cardanus, Eusebius, Nierembergius, Deusingius, Odoricus, Gerhardus de Vera, Ferdinand of Cordova, and many others. He then gives, firmly and clearly, his own opinion that the assertion that birds in Britain spring from the fruit or leaves of trees, or from wood, or from fungus, or from shells, is without foundation, and that neither reason, experience, nor authority tend to confirm it. He concedes that worms may be bred in rotting timber, and even that they may be of a kind that fly away on arriving at maturity (referring probably to caterpillars being developed into moths), but that birds should be thus generated, he says, is simply the repetition of a vulgar error, for not one of the authors whom he has examined has seen what they all affirm; nor are they able to bring forward a single eye-witness of it. He asks how it can be possible that animals so large and so highly-organised as these birds can grow from puny animalcules generated in putrid wood. He further declares that these British geese are hatched from eggs like other geese, which he considers proved by the testimony of Albertus Magnus, Gerhardus de Vera, and of Dutch seamen, who, in 1569, gave their written declaration that they had personally seen these birds sitting on their eggs, and hatching them, on the coasts of Nova Zembla.

[93] 'Physica Curiosa, sive Mirabilia Naturae et Artis,' 1662, lib.
ix. cap. xxii. p. 960.

In marked and disgraceful contrast with this careful and philosophical investigation and its author's just deductions from it, is 'A Relation concerning Barnacles by Sir Robert Moray, lately one of His Majesty's Council for the Kingdom of Scotland,' read before the Royal Society, and published in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' No. 137, January and February, 1677-8.

Describing "a cut of a large Firr-tree of about two and a half feet diameter, and nine or ten feet long," which he saw on the shore in the Western Islands of Scotland, and which had become so dry that many of the Barnacle shells with which it had been covered had been rubbed off, he says:--

"Only on the parts that lay next the ground there still hung
multitudes of little Shells, having within them little Birds,
perfectly shap'd, supposed to be Barnacles. The Shells hung very
thick and close one by another, and were of different sizes. Of the
colour and consistence of Muscle-Shells, and the sides and joynts
of them joyned with such a kind of film as Muscle-Shells are, which
serves them for a Hing to move upon, when they open and shut....
The Shells hang at the Tree by a Neck longer than the Shell, of a
kind of Filmy substance, round, and hollow, and creased, not unlike
the Wind-pipe of a chicken, spreading out broadest where it is
fastened to the Tree, from which it seems to draw and convey the
matter which serves for the growth and vegetation of the Shell and
the little Bird within it. This Bird in every Shell that I opened,
as well the least as the biggest, I found so curiously and
compleatly formed, that there appeared nothing wanting as to
internal parts, for making up a perfect Seafowl: every little part
appearing so distinctly that the whole looked like a large Bird
seen through a concave or diminishing glass, colour and feature
being everywhere so clear and neat. The little Bill, like that of a
Goose; the eyes marked; the Head, Neck, Breast, Wings, Tail, and
Feet formed, the Feathers everywhere perfectly shap'd, and blackish
coloured; and the Feet like those of other Water-fowl, to my best
remembrance. All being dead and dry, I did not look after the
internal parts of them. Nor did I ever see any of the little Birds
alive, nor met with anybody that did. Only some credible persons
have assured me they have seen some as big as their fist."

It seems almost incredible that little more than two hundred years ago this twaddle should not only have been laid before the highest representatives of science in the land, but that it should have been printed in their "Transactions" for the further delusion of posterity.

Ray, in his edition of Willughby's Ornithology, published in the same year as the above, contradicted the fallacy as strongly as Gaspar Schott; and (except that he incidentally admits the possibility of spontaneous generation in some of the lower animals, as insects and frogs) in language so similar that I think he must have had Schott's work before him when he wrote.

Aldrovandus[94] tells us that an Irish priest, named Octavianus, assured him with an oath on the Gospels that he had seen and handled the geese in their embryo condition; and he adds that he "would rather err with the majority than seem to pass censure on so many eminent writers who have believed the story."

[94] 'Ornithologia,' lib. xix. p. 173, ed. 1603.

In 1629 Count Maier (Michaelus Meyerus--these old authors when writing in Latin, latinized their names also) published a monograph 'On the Tree-bird'[95] in which he explains the process of its birth, and states that he opened a hundred of the goose-bearing shells and found the rudiments of the bird fully formed.

So slow Bootes underneath him sees,
In th' icy isles, those goslings hatched on trees,
Whose fruitful leaves, falling into the water,
Are turned, they say, to living fowls soon after;
So rotten sides of broken ships do change,
To barnacles, O, transformation strange!
'Twas first a green tree; then a gallant hull;
Lately a mushroom; then a flying gull.[96]

[95] 'De Volucri Arborea,' 1629.

[96] Du Bartas' "Divine Week" p. 228. Joshua Sylvester's
translation.

Now, let us turn from fiction to facts.

Almost every one is acquainted with at least one kind of the Barnacle shells which were supposed to enclose the embryo of a goose, namely the small white conical hillocks which are found, in tens of thousands, adhering to stones, rocks, and old timber such as the piles of piers, and may be seen affixed to the shells of oysters and mussels in any fishmonger's shop. The little animals which secrete and inhabit these shells belong to a sub-class and order of the Crustacea, called the _Cirrhopoda_, because their feet (_poda_), which in the crab and lobster terminate in claws, are modified into tufts of curled hairs (_cirri_), or feathers. When the animal is alive and active under water, a crater may be seen to open on the summit of the little shelly mountain, and, as if from the mouth of a miniature volcano, there issue from this aperture, from between two inner shells, the _cirri_ in the form of a feathery hand, which clutches at the water within its reach, and is then quickly retracted within the shell. During this movement the hair-fringed fingers have filtered from the water and conveyed towards the mouth within the shell, for their owner's nutriment, some minute solid particles or animalcules, and this action of the casting-net alternately shot forth and retracted continues for hours incessantly, as the water flows over its resting-place. The animal can live for a long time out of water, and in some situations thus passes half its life. Under such circumstances, the shells, containing a reserve of moisture, remain firmly closed until the return of the tide brings a fresh supply of water and food. These are the "acorn-barnacles," the _balani_, commonly known in some localities as "chitters."

Barnacles of another kind are those furnished with a long stem, or peduncle, which Sir Robert Moray described as "round, hollow, and creased, and not unlike the wind-pipe of a chicken." The stem has, in fact, the ringed formation of the annelids, or worms. The shelly valves are thin, flat, and in shape somewhat like a mitre. They are composed of five pieces, two on each side, and one, a kind of rounded keel along the back of the valves, by which these are united. The shells are delicately tinted with lavender or pale blue varied with white, and the edges are frequently of a bright chrome yellow or orange colour.

It is not an uncommon occurrence for a large plank entirely covered with these "necked barnacles" to be found floating at sea and brought ashore for exhibition at some watering-place; and I have more than once sent portions of such planks to the Aquaria at Brighton, and the Crystal Palace.

It is most interesting to watch a dense mass of living cirripedes so closely packed together that not a speck of the surface of the wood is left uncovered by them; their fleshy stalks overhanging each other, and often attached in clusters to those of some larger individuals; their plumose casting-nets ever gathering in the food that comes within their reach, and carrying towards the mouth any solid particles suitable for their sustenance. How much of insoluble matter barnacles will eliminate from the water is shown by the rapidity with which they will render turbid sea water clear and transparent. The most common species of these "necked barnacles" bears the name of "_Lepas anatifera_," "the duck-bearing _Lepas_." It was so entitled by Linnaeus, in recognition of its having been connected with the fable, which, of course, met with no credit from him.

Fig. 39 represents the figure-head of a ship, partly covered with barnacles, which was picked up about thirty miles off Lowestoft on the 22nd of October, 1857. It was described in the _Illustrated London News_, and the proprietors of that paper have kindly given me a copy of the block from which its portrait was printed.

Others of the barnacles affix themselves to the bottoms of ships, or parasitically upon whales and sharks, and those of the latter kind often burrow deeply into the skin of their host. Fig. 40 is a portrait of a _Coronula diadema_ taken from the nose of a whale stranded at Kintradwell, in the north of Scotland, in 1866, and sent to the late Mr. Frank Buckland. Growing on this _Coronula_ are three of the curious eared barnacles, _Conchoderma aurita_; the _Lepas aurita_ of Linnaeus. The species of the whale from which these Barnacles were taken was not mentioned, but it was probably the "hunch-backed" whale, _Megaptera longimana_, which is generally infested with this _Coronula_. This very illustrative specimen was, and I hope still is, in Mr. Buckland's Museum at South Kensington. It was described by him in _Land and Water_, of May 19th, 1866, and I am indebted to the proprietors of that paper for the accompanying portrait of it.

The young Barnacle when just extruded from the shell of its parent is a very different being from that which it will be in its mature condition. It begins its life in a form exactly like that of an entomostracous crustacean, and, like a Cyclops, has one large eye in the middle of its forehead. In this state it swims freely, and with great activity. It undergoes three moults, each time altering its figure, until at the third exuviation it has become enclosed in a bivalve shell, and has acquired a second eye. It is now ready to attach itself to its abiding-place; so, selecting its future residence, it presses itself against the wood, or whatever the substance may be, pours out from its two antennae a glutinous cement, which hardens in water, and thus fastens itself by the front of its head, is henceforth a fixture for life, and assumes the adult form in which most persons know it best.[97]