Part 25

Aldrovandus 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."

'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' 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.

'De Volucri Arborea,' 1629.

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.

If any of my readers wish to observe the development of young barnacles they may easily do so. The method I have generally adopted has been as follows: Procure a shallow glass or earthenware milk-pan that will hold at least a gallon. Fill this to within an inch of the top with sea-water, and place it in any shaded part of a room--not in front of a window. Put in the pan six or eight pebbles or clean shells of equal height, say 1-1/2 or 2 inches, and on them lay a clean sheet of glass, which, by resting on the pebbles, is brought to within about 2-1/2 inches of the surface of the water. Select some limpets or mussels having acorn-barnacles on them; carefully cut out the limpet or mussel, and clean nicely the interior of the shell; then place a dozen or more of these shells on the sheet of glass, and the barnacles upon them will be within convenient reach of any observation with a magnifying glass. If this be done in the month of March, the experimenter will not have to wait long before he sees young Balani ejected from the summits of some of the shells. Up to the moment of their birth each of them is enclosed in a little cocoon or case, in shape like a canary-seed, and most of them are tossed into the world whilst still enclosed in this. In a few seconds this casing is ruptured longitudinally, apparently by the struggles of its inmate, which escapes at one end, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, and swims freely to the surface of the water, leaving the split cocoon or case at the bottom of the pan. Some few of the young barnacles seem to be freed from the cocoon before, or at the moment of, extrusion. From three to a dozen or more of these escape with each protrusion of the cirri of the parent, and as the parturient barnacle will put forth its feathery casting net at least twenty times in a minute for an hour or more, it follows that as many as ten thousand young ones may be produced in an hour. These, as they are cast forth at each pulsation of the parent's cirri, fall upon the clean sheet of glass, and may be taken up in a pipette, and placed under a microscope, or removed to a smaller vessel of sea-water, for minute and separate investigation. It seems strange that animals which, like the oyster and the barnacles, are condemned in their mature condition to lead so sedentary a life, should in the earlier stages of their existence swim freely and merrily through the water--young fellows seeking a home, and when they have found it, although their connubial life must be a very tame one, settling down, and not caring to rove about any more for the remainder of their days. These young Balani dart about like so many water-fleas, and yet, after a few days of freedom, they become fixed and immovable, the inhabitants of the pyramidal shells which grow in such abundance on other shells, stones, and old wood.

It is unnecessary for me to describe more minutely the anatomy of the Cirripedes; I have said enough to show the nature of the plumose appurtenances which, hanging from the dead shells, were supposed to be the feathers of a little bird within; but it is difficult to understand how any one could have seen in the natural occupant of the shell, "the little bill, like that of a goose, the eyes, head, neck, breast, wings, tail, and feet, like those of other water-fowl," so precisely and categorically detailed by Sir Robert Moray. As Pontoppidan, who denounced the whole story, as being "without the least foundation," very truly says, "One must take the force of imagination to help to make it look so!"

As to the origin of the myth, I venture to differ entirely from philologists who attribute it to "language," and "a similarity of names," for, although, as Professor Max Muller observes in one of his lectures, "words without definite meanings are at the bottom of nearly all our philosophical and religious controversies," it certainly is not applicable in this instance. Every quotation here given shows that the mistake arose from the supposed resemblance of the plumes of the cirrhopod, and the feathers of a bird, and the fallacious deductions derived therefrom. The statements of Maier (p. 112), Gerard (p. 106), Sir Robert Moray (p. 110), &c., prove that this fanciful misconception sprang from erroneous observation. The love of the marvellous inherent in mankind, and especially prevalent in times of ignorance and superstition, favoured its reception and adoption, and I believe that it would have been as widely circulated, and have met with equal credence, if the names of the cirripede and of the goose that was supposed to be its offspring had been far more dissimilar than, at first, they really were.

Setting aside several ingenious and far-fetched derivations that have been proposed, I think we may safely regard the word "barnacle," as applied to the cirrhopod, as a corruption of pernacula, the diminutive of perna, a bivalve mollusk, so-called from the similarity in shape of its shell to that of a ham--pernacula being changed to bernacula. In some old Glossaries perna is actually spelt berna.

To arrive at the origin of the word "barnacle," or "bernicle," as applied to the goose, we must understand that this bird, Anser leucopsis, was formerly called the "brent," "brant," or "bran" goose, and was supposed to be identical with the species, Anser torquatus, which is now known by that name. The Scottish word for "goose" is "clake," or "clakis," and I think that the suggestion made long ago to Gesner (1558), by his correspondent, Joannes Caius, is correct, that the word "barnacle" comes from "branclakis," or "barnclake," "the dark-coloured goose."

See the quotation from Hector Boethius, p. 101.

'Historia Animalium,' lib. iii. p. 110.

Professor Max Muller is of the opinion that its Latin name may have been derived from Hibernicae, Hiberniculae, Berniculae, as it was against the Irish bishops that Geraldus wrote, but I must say that this does not commend itself to me; for the name Bernicula was not used in the early times to denote these birds. Giraldus himself described them as Bernacae, but they were variously known, also, as Barliates, Bernestas, Barnetas, Barbates, etc.

I agree with Dr. John Hill, that "the whole matter that gave origin to the story is that the 'shell-fish' (cirripedes), supposed to have this wonderful production usually adhere to old wood, and that they have a kind of fibres hanging out of them, which, in some degree, resemble feathers of some bird. From this slight origin arose the story that they contained real birds: what grew on trees people soon asserted to be the fruit of trees, and, from step to step, the story gained credit with the hearers," till, at length, Gerard had the audacity to say that he had witnessed the transformation.

'History of Animals,' p. 422. 1752.

The Barnacle Goose is only a winter visitor of Great Britain. It breeds in the far north, in Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, and Nova Zembla, and probably, also, along the shores of the White Sea. There are generally some specimens of this prettily-marked goose in the gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park, London; and they thrive there, and become very tame. In the months of December and January these geese may often be seen hanging for sale in poulterers' shops; and he who has tasted one well cooked may be pardoned if the suspicion cross his mind that the "monks of old," and "the bare-footed friars," as well as the laity, may not have been unwilling to sustain the fiction in order that they might conserve the privilege of having on their tables during the long fast of Lent so agreeable and succulent a "vegetable" or "fish" as a Barnacle Goose.

THE END.

LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

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