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at once into ducks, acquired plumage, and then flew off. His
Holiness remarks that he had been unable to obtain, any proof of
this wondrous tree existing in Scotland, but that it was to be found
growing in the Orkney Isles.
As early as the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus expressed
his disbelief in the stories of birds propagated from trees, yet there
were not wanting writers who professed to have been eye-witnesses
of the marvels they recounted respecting Bernicle or Claik Geese.
Some of these witnesses, however, asserted that the birds grew on
living trees, while others traced them to timber rotted in the sea, or
boughs of trees which had fallen therein. Boece, who favoured
the latter theory, writes that “ because the rude and ignorant
people saw oft-times the fruit that fell off the trees (which stood
near the sea) converted within a short time into geese, they believed
that yir-geese grew upon the trees, hanging by their nebbis [bills]
such like as Apples and other fruits hangs by their stalks, but
their opinion is nought to be sustained. For as soon as their Apples
or fruit falls off the tree into the sea-flood, they grow first worm-
eaten, and by short process of time are altered into geese.”
Munster, in his ‘ Cosmographie,’ remembers that in Scotland “ are
found trees which produce fruit rolled up in leaves, and this, in
due time, falling into water, which it overhangs, is converted into a
living bird, and hence the tree is called the Goose-tree. The same
tree grows in the island of Pomona. Lest you should imagine that
this is a fi(5lion devised by modern writers, I may mention that all
cosmographists, particularly Saxo Grammaticus, take notice of this
tree.” Prof. Rennie says that Montbeillard seems inclined to
derive the name of Pomona from its being the orchard of these
goose-bearing trees. Fulgosus depidts the trees themselves as
resembling Willows, “ as those who had seen them in Ireland and
Scotland ” had informed him. To these particulars, Bauhin adds
that, if the leaves of this tree fall upon the land, they become birds;
but if into the water, then they are transmuted into fishes.
Maundevile speaks of the Barnacle-tree as a thing known and
proved in his time. He tells us, in his book, that he narrated to
the somewhat sceptical inhabitants of Caldilhe how that “ in oure
centre weren trees that beren a fruyt that becomen briddes fleiynge :
and thei that fallen on the erthe dyen anon : and thei ben right
gode to mannes mete.”
Aldrovandns gives a woodcut of these trees, in which the
foliage resembles that of Myrtles, while the strange fruit is large
and heart-shaped.
Gerarde also gives a figure of what he calls the “ Goose-tree,
Barnacle-tree, or the tree bearing geese,” a reproduction of which
is annexed. And although he speaks of the goose as springing
from decayed wood, &c., the very fact of his introducing the tree
into the catalogue of his ‘ Herbal,’ shows that he was, at least,
divided between the above-named opinions. “ What our eyes
c S^arnacFe oi* 6Jooii)e Uree.
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[ t o p a c k p a g k t i 8.