are produced, at first unformed, but gradually acquiring the shape of birds, and when they are of some bigness they hang a short time by the beak and then fall into the water, where they become living birds. All which, being affirmed by men of credit, I not only dare believe myself, but also persuade others to believe *."

A more recent English authority is that of Gerard, the botanist, who has an express article in his celebrated Herbal " upon the goose-tree," with which our readers, we think, may be both amused and surprised. "What our eyes have seen," says Gerard, "and hands have touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof have been cast thither by shipwreck, 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 certain shells, in shape, like those of the mussel, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour, wherein is contained a thing in form like a lace of silk finely woven as it were together, of a whitish colour; one end wereof is fastened unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of oysters and mussel are; the other end is made fast unto the belly of a rude mass or lump, which, in time, cometh 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 has all come forth, and hangeth only by the bill; in short space after it cometh to full maturity, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth * Gesner, De Avibus, iii. 107, &c.

to a fowl bigger than a mallard and lesser than a goose, having black legs, and bill or beak, and feathers black and white, spotted in such manner as our magpie, called in some places pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than tree-goose; which place aforesaid, and of all those places 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 to me, and I shall satisfy them by the testimony of good witnesses *."

the male supplied himself with a daily breakfast of caterpillars, which is his natural food, and not eggs. Indeed we much question whether either sex of the cuckoo sucks eggs at all. Even M. Montbeillard himself takes some pains to prove that the female does not devour the eggs of the dupe-dam. Amongst others, he particularizes-five eggs of a titmouse (Parus), with one of the cuckoo; five eggs of the redbreast, with one of the cuckoo; four eggs of the nightingale, with one of the cuckoo; and two eggs of the titmouse, under a young cuckoo, but which were not hatched.

At the same time there can be no doubt, if we may trust numerous reports, that male birds (peacocks, for example) are often eager to discover the eggs or newly-hatched young of their own family, for the purpose of devouring them; and, what is no less remarkable, the hen of several birds will sometimes devour the very eggs she is sitting on, as was amply proved by the experiments of M. Montbeillard. About the end of April, he tells us, a hen canary having laid an egg, it was taken away, and when replaced, three or four days afterwards, she devoured it. In two days more she laid another and sat on it, when two chaffinch's eggs were put under her, and she continued to sit though she had broken her own. At the end of ten days the chaffinch's eggs were removed, and two newly-hatched yellow-hammers (Emberiza citrinella) were given her, which she reared very well. Afterwards she laid two eggs, of which she devoured one; and, on the other being taken away. she continued to brood as if she had had eggs, upon which a redbreast's egg was given her, which she successfully hatched. Another hen canary, having laid three eggs, broke them almost immediately; and upon substituting two chaffinch's eggs, and one of the black-cap, she sat upon them, and

The trees themselves Fulgosus represents as similar to willows, as those who had seen them in Ireland and in the Orkneys informed him *.

The same circumstances are related and credited by Bishop Leslie in his Scottish Chronicles; by Bishop Majolus in his treatise on the Dog-days; by Odoric in his account of the Tartarian Lamb; by the celebrated Scaliger in his Exercitations; by Baptista Porta, Kircher, Lobel, Isidore, Delrio, Torquemada, Bartholomew Glantville; and what is no less wonderful, by the distinguished naturalists Aldrovand, Gesner, and Johnston, while Count Mayer wrote an entire volume upon the subject, entitled a Treatise of the Tree-Bird (without father or mother) of the Orkney Isles, similar to a Goose t.' In this sage production, the archiatral and imperial Count, as he styles himself, decides that the bernacle goose does not originate either from fruits or worms, but from shells, of which he opened a hundred, and found in all of them the embryos of the goose completely formed; "like chicks in the eggs of pullets, having beaks, eyes, feet, wings, and even the down of commencing plumage, with all the other members of a young bird." He thence proceeds to discuss the sort of nourishment which these embryo geese require while remaining in the sea-shells, which increase gradually, he says, with the contained animal as do the shells of oysters, snails, and tortoises. He likewise discusses systematically, according to the Peripatetic philosophy, the several causes of the bernacle goose-efficient, material, formal, and final.

For

proof of the possibility of the thing, he gravely refers to the existence of hobgoblins, and he ascribes the production to the immediate influence of the stars; and even goes the irreverent length of considering * In Nieremberg, Hist. Nat. iii. 5. † Edit. 12mo. Francofurti, 1629,

the vegetable origin of these animals the Saviour †.

Bernacle Goose-Tree from Aldrovand.

Amongst our own countrymen, in times approaching to our own, we find similar records of ocular testimony, from which it will suffice to quote the following by Sir Robert Moray, which was published as authentic by the Royal Society. "In the western islands of Scotland," says Sir Robert, "the west ocean throws upon their shores great quantities of very large weather-beaten timber; the most ordinary trees are fir and ash. Being in the island of Uist, * See Insect Transformations, pp. 129-32.

The title of one of his chapters is "Quod finis proprius hujus volucris generationis sit, ut referat duplici sua natura, vegetabili et animali, Christum Deum et hominem, qui quoque, sine patre et matre, ut illa, existit."