_Ancient Motto--Barnacles_.--In reference to your querist in No. 6.,
respecting the motto which "some Pope or Emperor caused to be engraven
in the centre of his table," and the correspondent in No. 7. who
replies to him by a quotation from Horace, I beg to observe that
honest Thomas Fuller, in _The Holy State_, 275. ed. Lond. 1648, tells
us, that St. Augustine "had this distich written on his table:--
"Quisquis amat dictis absentem rodere famam,
Hanc mensam indignam noverit esse sibi.
* * * * *
He that doth love on absent friends to jeere,
May hence depart, no room is for him here."
With respect to the Barnacle fowl, it may be an addendum, not
uninteresting to your correspondent "W.B. MacCabe," to add to
his extract from Giraldus another from Hector Boece, _History of
Scotland_, "imprentit be Thomas Davidson, prenter to the Kyngis nobyll
grace [James VI.]." He observes, that the opinion of some, that the
"Claik geis growis on treis be the nebbis, is vane," and says he "maid
na lytyll lauboure and deligence to serche the treuthe and virite
yairof," having "salit throw the seis quhare thir Clakis ar bred," and
assures us, that although they were produced in "mony syndry wayis,
thay ar bred ay allanerly be nature of the seis." These fowls, he
continues, are formed from worms which are found in wood that has been
long immersed in salt water, and he avers that their transformation
was "notably provyn in the zier of God 1480 besyde the castell of
Petslego, in the sycht of mony pepyll," by a tree which was cast
ashore, in which the creatures were seen, partly formed, and some
with head, feet, and wings; "bot thay had na faderis." Some years
afterwards, a tree was thrown on the beach near Dundee, with the same
appearances, and a ship broken up at Leith exhibited the same marvel;
but he clinches the argument by a "notable example schawin afore our
eyne. Maister Alexander Galloway Person, of Kynkèll, was with us in
thir Illis (the Hebridæ), and be adventure liftet up ane see tangle,
hyng and full of mussil schellis," one of which he opened, "bot than
he was mair astonist than afore, for he saw na fische in it bot ane
perfit schapin foule. This clerk, knawin us richt desirous of sic
uncouth thingis, came haistely, and opinit it iwith all circumstance
afore rehersit." So far the venerable "Chanon of Aberdene." The West
Highlanders still believe in the barnacle origin of this species of
fowl.