ALBERT WAY.

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BARNACLES.

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