true and final explanation of their origin. A
certain "Maister Alexander Galloway" had apparently strolled with the
historian along the sea-coast, the former giving "his mynd with maist
ernist besynes to serche the verite of this obscure and mysty dowtis."
Lifting up a piece of tangle, they beheld the seaweed to be hanging
full of mussel-shells from the root to the branches. Maister Galloway
opened one of the mussel-shells, and was "mair astonis than afore" to
find no fish therein, but a perfectly shaped "foule, smal and gret,"
as corresponded to the "quantity of the shell." And once again Boece
draws the inference that the trees or wood on which the creatures are
found have nothing to do with the origin of the birds; and that the
fowls are begotten of the "occeane see, quhilk," concludes our author,
"is the caus and production of mony wonderful thingis."

More than fifty years after the publication of Boece's "History," old
Gerard of London, the famous "master in chirurgerie" of his day, gave
an account of the barnacle goose, and not only entered into minute
particulars of its growth and origin, but illustrated its manner of
production by means of the engraver's art of his day. Gerard's
"Herball," published in 1597, thus contains, amongst much that is
curious in medical lore, a very quaint piece of zooelogical history. He
tells us that "in the north parts of Scotland, and the Hands adjacent,
called Orchades (Orkneys)," are found "certaine trees, whereon doe
growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet;
wherein are conteined little living creatures: which shels in time of
maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those little living foules
whom we call Barnakles, in the north of England Brant Geese, and in
Lancashire tree Geese; but the other that do fall upon the land,
perish, and come to nothing: thus much by the writings of others, and
also from the mouths of people of those parts, which may," concludes
Gerard, "very well accord with truth."

Not content with hearsay evidence, however, Gerard relates what his
eyes saw and hands touched. He describes how on the coasts of a
certain "small Hand in Lancashire called Pile of Foulders" (probably
Peel Island), the wreckage of ships is cast up by the waves, along
with the trunks and branches "of old and rotten trees." On these
wooden rejectamenta "a certaine spume or froth" grows, according to
Gerard. This spume "in time breedeth unto certaine shels, in