In Brand's _Popular Antiquities_, vol. iii. pp. 361, 362., there is an
account given of _the barnacle_, "a well-known kind of shell-fish, which
is found sticking on the bottoms of ships," and with regard to which the
author observes, that "it seems hardly credible in this enlightened age,
that so gross an error in natural history should so long have
prevailed," as that this shell-fish should become changed into "a
species of goose." The author then quotes Holinshed, Hall,
Virgidemiarum, Marston, and Gerard; but he does not make the slightest
reference to Giraldus Cambrensis, who is his _Topographia Hiberniae_
first gave the account of the barnacle, and of that account the writers
referred to by Brand were manifestly but the copyists.
The passage referring to "the barnacle" will be found in the _Topog.
Hiber._ lib. i. e. xi. I annex a translation of it, as it may be
considered interesting, when compared with the passages quoted in
Brand:--
"There are," says Giraldus, "in this country (Ireland) a great
number of birds called barnacles (Bernacre), and which nature
produces in a manner that is contrary to the laws of nature. The
birds are not unlike to ducks, but they are somewhat smaller in
size. They make their first appearance as drops of gum upon the
branches of firs that are immersed in running waters; and then they
are next seen hanging like sea-weed from the wood, becoming encased
in shells, which at last assume in their growth the outward form of
birds, and so hang on by their beaks until they are completely
covered with feathers within their shells, and when they arrive at
maturity, they either drop into the waters, or take their flight at
once into the air. Thus from the juice of this tree, combined with
the water, are they generated and receive their nutriment until
they are formed and fledged. _I have many times with my own eyes
seen several thousand of minute little bodies of these birds
attached to pieces of wood immersed in the sea, encased in their
shells, and already formed._ These then are birds that never lay
eggs, and are never hatched from eggs; and the consequence is, that
in some parts of Ireland, and at those seasons of fasting when meat
is forbidden, bishops and other religious persons feed on these
birds, because they are not fish, nor to be regarded as flesh meat.
And who can marvel that this should be so? When our first parent
was made of mud, can we be surprised that a bird should be born of
a tree?"
The notion of the _barnacle_ being considered a fish is, I am aware, one
that still prevails on the western coast of Ireland; for I remember a
friend of mine, who had spent a few weeks in Kerry, telling me of the
astonishment he experienced upon seeing pious Roman Catholics eating
barnacles on Fridays, and being assured that they were nothing else than
fishes! My friend added that they had certainly a most "fish-like
flavour," and were, therefore, very nasty birds.