ned on this subject and ventilated by certain old
writers. Between 1154 and 1189 Giraldus Cambrensis, in a work entitled
"Topographia Hiberniae," written in Latin, remarks concerning "many
birds which are called Bernacae: 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. Afterward they hang down by their beaks, as if
from a seaweed attached to the timber, surrounded by shells, in order
to grow more freely," Giraldus is here evidently describing the
barnacles themselves. He continues: "Having thus, in process of time,
been clothed with a strong coat of feathers, they either fall into 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 seashore from one piece of timber, enclosed in
shells, and already formed." Here, again, our author is speaking of
the barnacles themselves, with which he naturally confuses the geese,
since he presumes the Crustaceans are simply geese in an undeveloped
state. He further informs his readers that, owing to their presumably
marine origin, "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," although for certain other and
theological reasons, not specially requiring to be discussed in the
present instance, Giraldus disputes the legality of this practice of
the Hibernian clerics.

In the year 1527 appeared "The Hystory and Croniclis of Scotland, with
the cosmography and dyscription thairof, compilit be the noble Clerk
Maister Hector Boece, Channon of Aberdene." Boece's "History" was
written in Latin; the title we have just quoted being that of the
English version of the work (1540), which title further sets forth
that Boece's work was "Translait laitly in our vulgar and commoun
langage be Maister Johne Bellenden, Archedene of Murray, And
Imprentit in Edinburgh, be me Thomas Davidson, prenter to the Kyngis
nobyll grace." In this learned work the author discredits the popular
ideas regarding the origin of the geese. "Some men belevis that thir
clakis (geese) growis on treis be the nebbis (bills). Bot thair
opinoun is