FIG. 28—THE PAPER NAUTILUS (Argonauta argo) RETRACTED WITHIN ITS SHELL.
Notwithstanding all that has been written of it, it is only within the last fifty years that this has been correctly understood. An eight-armed cuttle was recognised and namedOcythoe, which, instead of having, like the common octopus, all of its eight arms thong-like and tapering to a point, had the two dorsal limbs flattened into a broad thin membrane. Although this animal was sometimes seen dead without any covering, it was generally found contained in a thin and slightly elastic univalve shell of graceful form, and bearing some resemblance to an elegantly shaped boat. It did not penetrate to the bottom of this shell; it was not attached to it by any muscular ligament, nor was the shell moulded on its body, nor apparently made to fit it. Hence it was long regarded as doubtful, and even by naturalists so recent and eminent as Dumeril and De Blainville, whetherthe octopod really secreted the shell, or whether, like the hermit-crab, it borrowed for its protection the shell of some other mollusk. Aristotle left the subject with the faithful acknowledgment: "As to the origin and growth of this shell nothing is yet exactly determined. It appears to be produced like other shells; but even this is not evident, any more than it is whether the animal can live without it." Pliny, as usual, instead of throwing light on the matter, obscured it. He regarded the shell as the property of a gasteropod like the snail, and the octopod as an amateur yachtsman who occasionally went on board and took a trip in the frail craft, and assisted its owner to navigate it for the fun of the thing. This is what he says about it[76]: "Mutianus reports that he saw in the Propontis a shell formed like a little ship, having the poop turned up and the prow pointed. An animal called theNauplius, resembling an octopus, was enclosed in the shell with its owner, for its amusement in the following manner. When the sea is calm the guest lowers his arms, and uses them as oars and a helm, whilst the owner of the shell expands himself to catch the wind; so that one has the pleasure of carrying and sailing, and the other of steering. Thus, these two otherwise senseless animals take their pleasure together; but the meeting them sailing in their shell is a bad omen for mariners, and foretells some great calamity."
Although the animal was never found in any other shell, and the shell was never known to contain any other animal, and though, when the shell and the animal were found together they were always of proportionate size, this octopod, as I have said, was looked upon by some conchologists as a pirate who had taken possession of a ship which did not belong to him, until Madame Jeannette Power, a French lady thenresiding in Messina, having succeeded in keeping alive for a time an argonaut the shell of which had been broken in its capture, discovered that the animal quickly repaired the fracture, and reproduced the portions that had been broken off. Induced by this to make further experiments, she kept a number of living argonauts in cages sunk in the sea near the citadel of Messina, and in 1836 laid before the "Academy" at Catania the following results of her observations of them:—
1st. That the argonaut constructs the shell which it inhabits.
2nd. That it quits the egg entirely naked, and forms the shell after its birth.
3rd. That it can repair its shell, if necessary, by a fresh deposit of material having the same chemical composition as its original shell.
4th. That this material is secreted by the palmate, or sail, arms, and is laid on the outside of the shell, to the exterior of which these membranous arms are closely applied.
Madame Power was mistaken on two points. Firstly, the construction of the shell does not commence after the birth of the animal, but, as has been shown by M. Duvernoy, its rudimentary form is distinctly visible by the aid of the microscope in the embryo, whilst still in the egg; and secondly, she continued to believe in the use of the membranous arms as sails, and of the others as oars. This fallacy was exploded by Captain Sander Rang, an officer of the French navy, and "port-captain" at Algiers, who carefully followed up Madame Power's experiments, and confirmed the more important of them. Thus were set at rest questions which for centuries had divided the opinions of zoologists.
The "Paper Nautilus" is, in fact, a female octopod provided with a portable nest, in which to carry about and protect her eggs, instead of brooding over them in some cranny of a rock, or within the recesses of a pile of shells, as does her cousin the octopus. From the membranes of the two flattened and expanded arms she secretes and, if necessary, repairs her shell, and by applying them closely to its outer surface on each side, holds herself within it, for it is not fastened to her body by any attaching muscles. When disturbed or in danger she can loosen her hold, and, leaving her cradle, swim away independently of it. It has been said that, having once left it, she has not the ability nor perhaps the sagacity to re-enter her nest, and resume the guardianship of her eggs.[77]From my own observations of the breeding habits of other octopods I think this most improbable. The use and purpose of the shell of the argonaut will be better understood if I briefly describe what I have witnessed of the treatment of its eggs by its near relative, the octopus.
"The eggs of the octopus," as I have elsewhere said, "when first laid, are small, oval, translucent granules, resembling little grains of rice, not quite an eighth of an inch long. They grow along and around a common stalk, to which every egg is separately attached, as grapes form part of a bunch. Each of the elongated bunches is affixed by a glutinous secretion to the surface of a rock or stone (never to seaweed, as has been erroneously stated), and hangs pendent by its stalk in a long white cluster, like a magnified catkin of the filbert, or, to use Aristotle's simile, like the fruit of the white alder. The length and number of these bunches varies according to the size and condition ofthe parent. Those produced by a small octopus are seldom more than about three inches long, and from twelve to twenty in number; but a full-grown female will deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about five inches in length. I have counted the eggs of which these clusters are composed, and find that there are about a thousand in each: so that a large octopus produces in one laying, usually extended over three days, a progeny of from 40,000 to 50,000. I have seen an octopus, when undisturbed, pass one of her arms beneath the hanging bunches of her eggs, and, dilating the membrane on each side of it into a boat-shaped hollow, gather and receive them in it as in a trough or cradle which exhibited in its general shape and outline a remarkable similarity to the shell of the argonaut, with the eggs of which octopod its own are almost identical in form and appearance. Then she would caress and gently rub them, occasionally turning towards them the mouth of her flexible exhalent and locomotor tube, like the nozzle of a fireman's hose-pipe, so as to direct upon them a jet of the excurrent water. I believe that the object of this syringing process is to free the eggs from parasitic animalcules, and possibly to prevent the growth of conferva, which, I have found, rapidly overspreads those removed from her attention."[78]
It has been suggested that the syringing may be for the purpose of keeping the water surrounding the eggs well aerated; but this is evidently erroneous, for the water ejected from the tube has been previously deprived of its oxygen, and consequently of its health-giving properties, whilst passing over the gills of the parent. Week after week, for fifty days, a brooding octopus will continue to attend to her eggs with the most watchful and assiduouscare, seldom leaving them for an instant except to take food, which, without a brief abandonment of her position, would be beyond her reach. Aristotle asserted that while the female is incubating she takes no food. This is incorrect; but in every case of the kind that has come under my observation the mother octopod, whenever she has been obliged to leave her nest, has returned to it as quickly as possible; and so I believe can, and does, the female argonaut to her shell, and that, too, without any difficulty. In her case the numerous clusters of eggs are all united at their origin to one slender and tapering stalk which is fixed by a spot of glutinous matter to the body-whorl of the spiral shell.
FIG. 29.—THE PAPER NAUTILUS (Argonauta argo) CRAWLING.
This "paper-sailor," then, whom the poets have regarded as endowed with so much grace and beauty, and living in luxurious ease, is but a fine lady octopus after all. Turn her out of her handsome residence, and, instead of the fairy skimmer of the seas, you have before you an object apparently as free from loveliness and romance as her sprawling, uncanny-looking, relative. Instead of floating in her pleasure boat over the surface of the sea, the argonaut ordinarily crawls along the bottom, carrying her shell above her, keel uppermost; and the broad extremities of the two arms are not hoisted as sails, nor allowed whenat rest to dangle over the side of the "boat;" but are used as a kind of hood by which the animal retains the shell in its proper position, as a man bearing a load on his shoulders holds it with his hands. When she comes to the surface, or progresses by swimming instead of walking, she does so in the same manner as the octopus: namely, by the forcible expulsion of water from her funnel-like tube.
But if truth compels us to deprive her of the counterfeit halo conferred on her by poets, we can award her, on behalf of science, a far nobler crown; namely, that of the Queen of the whole great Invertebrate Animal Kingdom. For, theCephalopoda, of which the argonaut is a highly organised member, are not only the highest in their own division, theMollusca, but they are as far superior to all other animals which have no backbones, as man stands lord and king over all created beings that possess them.
FIG. 30.—THE PAPER NAUTILUS (Argonauta argo) SWIMMING.
FIG. 31.—SHELL OF THE PAPER NAUTILUS (Argonauta argo).
Although in outward shape the spiral shell of the Pearly Nautilus (Nautilus pompilius) somewhat resembles that of the argonaut, its internal structure is very different. A section of it shows that it is divided into several chambers, each of which is partitioned off from the adjoining ones, the last formed or external one, in which the animal lives, being much larger than the rest. The object and mode of construction of these chambers is as follows. As the animal grows, a constant secretion of new material takes place on the edge of the shell. By this unceasing processof the addition of new shell in the form of a circular curve or coil around the older portion, the whole rapidly increases in size, both in diameter, and in the length of the chamber. The Nautilus, requiring to keep the secreting portion of its mantle applied to the lip of the shell, finds the chamber in which it dwells gradually becoming inconveniently long for it, and therefore builds up a wall behind itself, and continues its work of enlarging its premises in front. Each of these walls, concave in front, towards the mouth of the shell, and concave behind, acts as a strong girder and support of the arch of the shell against the inward pressure of deep water: and it was formerly supposed that each successive chamber so constructed and vacated remained filled with air, andthusbecame an additional float by which the constantly increasing weight of the growing shell was counter-balanced. By this beautiful adjustment of augmented floating power to increased weight, the buoyancy of the shell would be secured and its specific gravity maintained as nearly as possible equal to that of the surrounding water. This adjustment doesprobably take place, but in a somewhat different manner. As the Nautilus inhabits a depth of from twenty to forty fathoms, it is evident that the air within its shell would be displaced by the pressure of such a column of water.[79]Accordingly, in every instance of the capture of a Nautilus the chambers of its shell have been found filled with water. It is not improbable that the fluid they contain may be less compressed, and exert less pressure from within outwards than that of the external superincumbent column of water, and that by this unbalanced pressure—under the samehydro-dynamic law which governs its mode of self-propulsion when swimming, and possibly in some degree within the control of the animal—the latter is relieved of much of the weight of its shell. When the Nautilus is at the bottom of the sea its movement is like that of a snail crawling along upon the ground with its shell above it. The shell, in proportion to the size of the animal that inhabits it, is a heavy one, and unless it were rendered semi-buoyant, its owner's strength would be severely taxed by the effort to drag it along. By the means indicated this portabledomicile is borne lightly above the body of the Nautilus, without in any way impeding its progress.
FIG. 32.—SHELL OF THE PEARLY NAUTILUS (Nautilus pompilius).
FIG. 33.—THE PEARLY NAUTILUS (Nautilus pompilius), AND SECTION OF ITS SHELL. After Professor Owen. a a, Partitions; b b, chambers; b', the last-formed chamber, in which the animal lives; c c, the siphuncle; d, attaching muscle; e e, the hollow arms; f f, retractile tentacles; g, muscular disk, or foot; h, the eye; i, position of funnel.
The chambers are all connected by a membranous tube slightly coated with nacre, which is connected with a large sac in the body of the animal, near the heart, and passes through a circular orifice and a short projecting tube in the centre of each partition wall, till it ends in the smallest chamber at the inner extremity of the shell. Dean Buckland believed this "syphon" to be an hydraulic apparatus acting as a "fine adjustment" of the specific gravity of the shell, by admitting water within it when expanded, and excluding it when contracted. As it contains an artery and vein near its origin at the mantle, Professor Owen has regarded it as subservient to the maintenance of a low vitality in the vacated portion of the shell. Dr. Henry Woodward is of the opinion that, whilst in the early life of the Nautilus this siphuncle forms the main point of attachment between the animal and its shell, it is in the adult "simply an aborted embryonal organ whose function is now filled by the shell-muscles, but which in the more ancient and straight-shelled representatives of the group (the Orthoceratites) was not merely an embryonal but an important organ in the adult."
Every one knows the shell of the Pearly Nautilus. It may be purchased at any shell-shop in a seaside watering-place, and is imported by hundreds every year from Singapore.[80]It is abundant in the waters of the Indian Archipelago, especially about the Molucca and Philippine Islands, and on the shores of New Caledonia and the Fijiand Solomon Islands. It has also been found alive on Pemba Island, near Zanzibar. It seems strange, therefore, that until about half a century ago hardly anything was known of the animal that secretes and inhabits it. Rumphius, a Dutch naturalist, in his 'Rarities of Amboyna,' published, in 1705, a description of one with an engraving, incorrect in drawing, and deficient in detail; and until 1832 this was the only information which existed concerning it. The great Cuvier never saw one, and being acquainted only with the two-gilled cephalopods, he regarded the head-footed mollusks as absolutely isolated from all other animals in the kingdom of nature, even from the other classes of the mollusca. It seemed, however, to Professor Owen, then only nineteen years of age, that in the only living representative of the four-gilled order,Nautilus pompilius, might be found the "missing link." When, therefore, in the year 1824, his fellow-student, Mr. George Bennett, was about to sail from England to the Polynesian Islands, young Richard Owen earnestly charged his friend to do his utmost to obtain, and bring home in alcohol, a specimen of the much-coveted Pearly Nautilus. The opportunity did not occur till one warm and calm Monday evening, the 24th of August, 1829, when a living Nautilus was seen at the surface of the water not far distant from the ship, in Marekini Bay, on the south-west coast of the Island of Erromango, New Hebrides, in the South Pacific Ocean. It looked like a dead tortoise-shell cat, as the sailors said. As it began to sink as soon as it was observed, it was struck at with a boat-hook, and was thus so much injured that it died shortly after being taken on board the ship. The shell was destroyed, but the soft body of the animal was preserved in spirits, and great was the joy of Mr. Owen when, in July, 1831, Mr. Bennettarrived with it in England, and presented it to the Royal College of Surgeons. Mr. Owen was then Assistant-Conservator of the Museum of the College under Mr. Clift, who was afterwards his father-in-law. He immediately commenced to anatomise, describe, and figure his rare acquisition, and in the early part of 1832 published the result of his work in the form of a masterly treatise, which proved to be the foundation of his future fame.[81]
Mr. Owen's investigations confirmed his previous supposition that the Pearly Nautilus is inferior in its organisation to octopus, sepia, or any other known cephalopod; that it is not isolated, but that it recedes towards the gasteropods, to which belong the snail, the periwinkle, &c., and that in some of its characters its structure is analogouslyrelated to the still lowerannulosa, or worms. Mr. Owen was just about to start for Paris with the intention of presenting a copy of his book to his celebrated contemporary and friend, and of showing him his dissections of the Nautilus which had been the subject of his research, when he heard of Baron Cuvier's death. It must have been to him a great sorrow and a grievous disappointment.
The Pearly Nautilus, then, is a true cephalopod, in that it has its foot divided and arranged in segments around its head, but the form and number of these segments are very different from those of any other of its class. Instead of there being eight, as in the argonaut and octopus, or ten, as in sepia and the calamaries, the Nautilus has about ninety projecting in every direction from around the mouth. They are short, round, and tapering, of about the length and thickness of the fingers of a child. Some of them are retractile into sheaths, and they are attached to fleshy processes (which might represent the child's hand), overlying each other, and covering the mouth on each side. They have none of the suckers with which the arms and tentacles of all the other cuttles are furnished, but their annulose structure, like the rings of an earthworm's body, gives them some little prehensile power. None of these numerous finger-like segments of the foot are flattened out like the broad membranous expansions of the argonaut, and, in fact, the Nautilus is without any members which can possibly be regarded as sails to hoist, or as oars with which to row. It has a strong beak, like the rest of the cuttles; but it has no ink-sac, for its shell is strong enough to afford it the protection which its two-gilled relatives have to seek in concealment.
The Pearly Nautilus usually creeps, like a snail, along the bed of the sea. It lives at the bottom, and feedsat the bottom, principally on crabs; and, as Dr. S. P. Woodward says, in his 'Manual of the Mollusca,' "perhaps often lies in wait for them, like some gigantic sea-anemone, with outspread tentacles." The shape of its shell is not well adapted for swimming, but it can ascend to the surface, if it so please, in the same manner as can all the cuttles—namely, by the outflow of water from its locomotor tube. The statement that it visits the surface of the sea of its own accord is at present, however, unconfirmed by observation.
But, if the Pearly Nautilus is the inferior and poor relation of the argonaut, it lives in a handsome house, and comes of an ancient lineage. The Ammonites, whose beautiful whorled and chambered shells, and the casts of them, are so abundant in every stratum, especially in the lias, the chalk, and the oolite, had four gills also. These Ammonites and the Nautili were amongst the earliest occupants of the ancient deep; and, with the Hamites, Turrilites, and others, lived upon our earth during a great portion of the incalculable period which has elapsed since it became fitted for animal existence, and in their time witnessed the rise and fall of many an animal dynasty. But they are gone now; and only the fossil relics of more than two thousand species (of which 188 were Nautili) remain to tell how important a race they were amongst the inhabitants of the old world seas. They and their congeners of the chambered shells, however, left one representative which has lived on through all the changes that have taken place on the surface of this globe since they became extinct—namely,Nautilus pompilius, the Nautilus of the pearly shell—the last of the Tetrabranchs.
I need offer no apology for endeavouring to explain the difference between the Nautilus of the chambered shell and the argonaut with the membranous arms which it wassupposed to use as sails, when Webster, in his great standard dictionary, describes the one and figures the other as one and the same animal; and when a writer of the celebrity of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes also blends the two in the following poem, containing a sentiment as exquisite as its science is erroneous. I hope the latter distinguished and accomplished author, whose delightful writings I enjoy and highly appreciate, will pardon my criticism. I admit that the beauty of the thought might well atone for its inaccuracy, (of which the author is conscious,) were it not that the latter is made so attractive that truth appears harsh in disturbing it.
"THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.""This is the ship of pearl, which poets feignSails the unshadowed main,The venturous bark that flingsOn the sweet summer wind its purpled wings,In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,And coral reefs lie bare,Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl,Wrecked is the ship of pearl!And every chambered cell,Where its dim, dreaming life was wont to dwell,As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,Before thee lies revealed,Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!Year after year beheld the silent toilThat spread his lustrous coil;Still, as the spiral grew,He left the past year's dwelling for the new,Stole with soft step its shining archway through,Built up its idle door,Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,Child of the wandering sea,Cast from her lap forlorn!From the dead lips a clearer note is bornThan ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!While on mine ear it rings,Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,As the swift seasons roll!Leave thy low vaulted past;Let each new temple, nobler than the last,Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,Till thou at length art free,Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.'"
"THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS."
"This is the ship of pearl, which poets feignSails the unshadowed main,The venturous bark that flingsOn the sweet summer wind its purpled wings,In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,And coral reefs lie bare,Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl,Wrecked is the ship of pearl!And every chambered cell,Where its dim, dreaming life was wont to dwell,As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,Before thee lies revealed,Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toilThat spread his lustrous coil;Still, as the spiral grew,He left the past year's dwelling for the new,Stole with soft step its shining archway through,Built up its idle door,Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,Child of the wandering sea,Cast from her lap forlorn!From the dead lips a clearer note is bornThan ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!While on mine ear it rings,Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—
'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,As the swift seasons roll!Leave thy low vaulted past;Let each new temple, nobler than the last,Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,Till thou at length art free,Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.'"
The belief that some wild geese, instead of being hatched from eggs, like other birds, grew on trees and rotten wood has never been surpassed as a specimen of ignorant credulity and persistent error.
There are two principal versions of this absurd notion. One is that certain trees, resembling willows, and growing always close to the sea, produced at the ends of their branches fruit in form like apples, and each containing the embryo of a goose, which, when the fruit was ripe, fell into the water and flew away. The other is that the geese were bred from a fungus growing on rotten timber floating at sea, and were first developed in the form of worms in the substance of the wood.
When and whence this improbable theory had its origin is uncertain. Aristotle does not mention it, and consequently Pliny and Ælian were deprived of the pleasure they would have felt in handing down to posterity, without investigation or correction, a statement so surprising. It is, comparatively, a modern myth; although we find that it was firmly established in the middle of the twelfth century, for Gerald de Barri, known in literature as Giraldus Cambrensis, mentions it in his 'Topographia Hiberniæ,' published in 1187. Giraldus, who was Archdeacon of Brecknock in the reign of Henry II., and tried hard, more than once, for the bishopric of St. David's, the functions of which he had temporarily administered without obtainingthe title, was a vigorous and zealous reformer of Church abuses. Amongst the laxities of discipline against which he found it necessary to protest was the custom then prevailing of eating these Barnacle geese during Lent, under the plea that their flesh was not that of birds, but of fishes. He writes:—
"There are here many birds which are called Bernacæ, which nature produces in a manner contrary to nature, and very wonderful. They are like marsh-geese but smaller. They are produced from fir-timber tossed about at sea, and are at first like geese upon it. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks, as if from a sea-weed attached to the wood, and are enclosed in shells that they may grow the more freely. Having thus, in course of time, been clothed with a strong covering of feathers, they either fall into the water, or seek their liberty in the air by flight. The embryo geese derive their growth and nutriment from the moisture of the wood or of the sea, in a secret and most marvellous manner. I have seen with my own eyes more than a thousand minute bodies of these birds hanging from one piece of timber on the shore, enclosed in shells and already formed. Their eggs are not impregnatedin coitu, like those of other birds, nor does the bird sit upon its eggs to hatch them, and in no corner of the world have they been known to build a nest. Hence the bishops and clergy in some parts of Ireland are in the habit of partaking of these birds on fast days, without scruple. But in doing so they are led into sin. For, if any one were to eat of the leg of our first parent, although he (Adam) was not born of flesh, that person could not be adjudged innocent of eating flesh."
"There are here many birds which are called Bernacæ, which nature produces in a manner contrary to nature, and very wonderful. They are like marsh-geese but smaller. They are produced from fir-timber tossed about at sea, and are at first like geese upon it. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks, as if from a sea-weed attached to the wood, and are enclosed in shells that they may grow the more freely. Having thus, in course of time, been clothed with a strong covering of feathers, they either fall into the water, or seek their liberty in the air by flight. The embryo geese derive their growth and nutriment from the moisture of the wood or of the sea, in a secret and most marvellous manner. I have seen with my own eyes more than a thousand minute bodies of these birds hanging from one piece of timber on the shore, enclosed in shells and already formed. Their eggs are not impregnatedin coitu, like those of other birds, nor does the bird sit upon its eggs to hatch them, and in no corner of the world have they been known to build a nest. Hence the bishops and clergy in some parts of Ireland are in the habit of partaking of these birds on fast days, without scruple. But in doing so they are led into sin. For, if any one were to eat of the leg of our first parent, although he (Adam) was not born of flesh, that person could not be adjudged innocent of eating flesh."
This fable of the geese appears, however, to have been current at least a hundred years before Giraldus wrote, for Professor Max Müller, who treats of it in one of his "Lectures on the Science of Language," amongst many interesting references there given, quotes a Cardinal of the eleventh century, Petrus Damianus, who clearly describes, that version of it which represents the birds as bursting, when fully fledged, from fruit resembling apples.
It is a curious fact that these Barnacle geese havetroubled the priesthood of more than one creed as to the instructions they should give to the laity concerning the use of them as food. The Jews—all those, at least, who maintain a strict observance of the Hebrew Law—eat no meat but that of animals which have been slaughtered in a certain prescribed manner; and a doubt arose amongst them at the period we refer to, whether these geese should be killed as flesh or as fish. Professor Max Müller cites Mordechai,[82]as asking whether these birds are fruits, fish, or flesh; that is, whether they must be killed in the Jewish way, as if they were flesh. Mordechai describes them as birds which grow on trees, and says, "the Rabbi Jehuda, of Worms (who died 1216) used to say that he had heard from his father, Rabbi Samuel, of Speyer (about 1150), that Rabbi Jacob Tham, of Ramerü (who died 1171), the grandson of the great Rabbi Rashi (about 1140), had decided that they must be killed as flesh."
Pope Innocent III. took the same view; for at the Lateran Council, in 1215, he prohibited the eating of Barnacle geese during Lent. In 1277, Rabbi Izaak, of Corbeil, determined to be on the safe side, forbade altogether the eating of these birds by the Jews, "because they were neither flesh nor fish."
Michael Bernhard Valentine,[83]quoting Wormius, says that this question caused much perplexity and disputation amongst the doctors of the Sorbonne; but that they passed an ordinance that these geese should be classed as fishes, and not as birds; and he adds, that in consequence of this decision large numbers of these birds were annually sent to Paris from England and Scotland, for consumption inLent. Sir Robert Sibbald[84]refers to this, and says that Normandy was the locality from which the French capital was reported to be principally supplied; but that in fact the greater number of these geese came from Holland. The date of this edict is not given.
Professor Max Müller says that in Brittany, Barnacle geese are still allowed to be eaten on Fridays, and that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ferns may give permission to people out of his diocese to eat these birds at his table.
In Bombay, also, where fish is prohibited as food to some classes of the population, the priests call this goose a "sea-vegetable," under which name it is allowed to be eaten.
Various localities were mentioned as the breeding-places of these arboreal geese. Gervasius of Tilbury,[85]writing about 1211, describes the process of their generation in full detail, and says that great numbers of them grew in his time upon the young willow trees which abounded in the neighbourhood of the Abbey of Faversham, in the county of Kent, and within the Archiepiscopate of Canterbury. The bird was there commonly called theBarneta.
Hector Boethius, or Boece, the old Scottish historian, combats this version of the story. His work, written in Latin, in 1527, was translated into quaint Scottish in 1540, by John Bellenden, Archdeacon of Murray. In his fourteenth chapter, "Of the nature of claik geis, and of the syndry maner of thair procreatioun, and of the ile of Thule," he says:—
"Restis now to speik of the geis generit of the see namit clakis. Sum men belevis that thir clakis growis on treis be the nebbis. Bot thair opinioun is vane. And becaus the nature and procreatioun of thir clakis is strange we have maid na lytyll laubore and deligence toserche ye treuth and verite yairof, we have salit throw ye seis quhare thir clakis ar bred, and I fynd be gret experience, that the nature of the seis is mair relevant caus of thir procreatioun than ony uther thyng."
"Restis now to speik of the geis generit of the see namit clakis. Sum men belevis that thir clakis growis on treis be the nebbis. Bot thair opinioun is vane. And becaus the nature and procreatioun of thir clakis is strange we have maid na lytyll laubore and deligence toserche ye treuth and verite yairof, we have salit throw ye seis quhare thir clakis ar bred, and I fynd be gret experience, that the nature of the seis is mair relevant caus of thir procreatioun than ony uther thyng."
From the circumstances attending the finding of "ane gret tree that was brocht be alluvion and flux of the see to land, in secht of money pepyll besyde the castell of Petslego, in the yeir of God ane thousand iiii. hundred lxxxx, and of a see tangle hyngand full of mussill schellis," brought to him by "Maister Alexander Galloway, person of Kynkell," who knowing him to be "richt desirus of sic uncouth thingis came haistely with the said tangle," he arrives at the conclusion, by a process of reasoning highly satisfactory and convincing to himself, that,
"Be thir and mony othir resorcis and examplis we can not beleif that thir clakis ar producit be ony nature of treis or rutis thairof, but allanerly be the nature of the Oceane see, quhilk is the caus and production of mony wonderful thingis. And becaus the rude and ignorant pepyl saw oftymes the fruitis that fel of the treis (quhilkis stude neir the see) convertit within schort tyme in geis, thai belevit that thir geis grew apon the treis hingand be thair nebbis sic lik as appillis and uthir frutis hingis be thair stalkis, bot thair opinioun is nocht to be sustenit. For als sone as thir appillis or frutis fallis of the tre in the see flude thay grow first wormeetin. And be schort process of tyme are alterat in geis."
"Be thir and mony othir resorcis and examplis we can not beleif that thir clakis ar producit be ony nature of treis or rutis thairof, but allanerly be the nature of the Oceane see, quhilk is the caus and production of mony wonderful thingis. And becaus the rude and ignorant pepyl saw oftymes the fruitis that fel of the treis (quhilkis stude neir the see) convertit within schort tyme in geis, thai belevit that thir geis grew apon the treis hingand be thair nebbis sic lik as appillis and uthir frutis hingis be thair stalkis, bot thair opinioun is nocht to be sustenit. For als sone as thir appillis or frutis fallis of the tre in the see flude thay grow first wormeetin. And be schort process of tyme are alterat in geis."
In describing the bird thus produced, Boethius declares that the male has a sharp, pointed beak, like the gallinaceous birds, but that in the female the beak is obtuse as in other geese and ducks.
According to other authors, this wonderful production of birds from living or dead timber was not confined to England and Scotland. Vincentius Bellovacensis[86](1190-1264)in his 'Speculum Naturæ,' xvii. 40, states that it took place in Germany, and Jacob de Vitriaco (who died 1244) mentions its occurrence in certain parts of Flanders.
Jonas Ramus gives a somewhat different version of the process as it occurs in Norway. He writes:[87]"It is said that a particular sort of geese is found in Nordland, which leave their seed on old trees, and stumps and blocks lying in the sea; and that from that seed there grows a shell fast to the trees, from which shell, as from an egg, by the heat of the sun, young geese are hatched, and afterwards grow up; which gave rise to the fable that geese grow upon trees."
But, strange to say, if any painstaking enquirer, wishing to investigate the matter for himself, went to a locality where it was said the phenomenon regularly occurred, he was sure to find that he had literally, "started on a wild-goose chase," and had come to the wrong place. This was the experience of Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., who complained that miracles will always flee farther and farther away; for when he was on a visit (about 1430) to King James I., of Scotland,[88]and enquired after the tree which he most eagerly desired to see, he was told that it grew much farther north, in the Orkney Islands.
Notwithstanding the suspicious fact that the prodigy receded like Will o' the Wisp, whenever it was persistently followed up, Sebastian Munster, who relates[89]the foregoinganecdote of Æneas Sylvius, appears to have entertained no doubt of the truth of the report, for he writes:—
FIG. 34.—THE GOOSE TREE. Copied from Gerard's 'Herball,' 1st edition.[90]
"In Scotland there are trees which produce fruit, conglomerated of their leaves; and this fruit, when in due time it falls into the water beneath it, is endowed with new life, and is converted into a living bird, which they call the 'tree-goose.' This tree grows in the Island of Pomonia, which is not far from Scotland, towards the north. Several old cosmographers, especially Saxo Grammaticus, mention the tree, and it must not be regarded as fictitious, as some new writers suppose."
"In Scotland there are trees which produce fruit, conglomerated of their leaves; and this fruit, when in due time it falls into the water beneath it, is endowed with new life, and is converted into a living bird, which they call the 'tree-goose.' This tree grows in the Island of Pomonia, which is not far from Scotland, towards the north. Several old cosmographers, especially Saxo Grammaticus, mention the tree, and it must not be regarded as fictitious, as some new writers suppose."
Julius Cæsar Scaliger[91](1540) gives another reading of the legend, in which it is asserted that the leaves which fall from the tree into the water are converted into fishes, and those which fall upon the land become birds.
Thus this extraordinary belief held sway, and remained strong and invincible, although from time to time some man of sense and independent thought attempted to turn the tide of popular error. Albertus Magnus (who died 1280) showed its absurdity, and declared that he had seen the bird referred to lay its eggs and hatch them in the ordinary way. Roger Bacon (who died in 1294) also contradicted it, and Belon, in 1551, treated it with ridicule and contempt. Olaus Wormius[92]seems to have believed in it, though he wrote cautiously about it. Olaus Magnus (1553) mentions it, and apparently accepts it as a fact, occurring in the Orkneys, on the authority of "a Scotch historian who diligently sets down the secrets of things," and then dismisses it in three lines.
Passing over many other writers on the subject, we come to the time of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when (in 1597) "John Gerarde, Master in Chirurgerie, London," published his "Herball, or Generall Historie of Plants gathered by him," and in the last chapter thereof solemnly declared, that he had actually witnessed the transformation of "certaine shell fish" into Barnacle Geese, as follows.
Of the Goose tree, Barnacle tree, or the tree bearing Geese.
Britanicæ Conchæ anatiferæ.
THE BREED OF BARNACLES.
¶The Description.
Hauing trauelled from the Grasses growing in the bottome of the fenny waters, the Woods, and mountaines, euen vnto Libanus itselfe; and also the sea, and bowels of the same, wee are arriued at the end of our History; thinking it not impertinent to the conclusion of the same, to end with one of the maruels of this land (we may say of the World). The history whereof to set forth according to the worthinesse and raritie thereof, would not only require a large and peculiar volume, but also a deeper search into the bowels of Nature, then my intended purpose will suffer me to wade into, my sufficiencie also considered; leauing the History thereof rough hewen, vnto some excellent man, learned in the secrets of nature, to be both fined and refined; in the meane space take it as it falleth out, the naked and bare truth, though vnpolished. There are found in the North parts of Scotland and the Islands adjacent, called Orchades, certaine trees whereon do grow certaine shells of a white colour tending to russet, wherein are contained little liuing creatures: which shells in time of maturity doe open, and out of them grow those little liuing things, which falling into the water do become fowles, which we call Barnacles; in the North of England, brant Geese; and in Lancashire, tree Geese: but the other that do fall vpon the land perish and come to nothing. Thus much by the writings of others, and also from the mouthes of people of those parts, which may very well accord with truth.But what our eies haue seene, and hands haue touched we shall declare. There is a small Island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships some whereof haue beene cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees, cast vp there likewise; whereon is found a certaine spume or froth that in time breedeth vnto certaine shells, in shape like those of the Muskle,but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour; wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely wouen as it were together, of a whitish colour, one end whereof is fastened vnto the inside of the shell, euen as the fish of Oisters and Muskles are: the other end is made fast vnto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and forme of a Bird: when it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, til at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill: in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a Mallard, and lesser than a Goose, hauing blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such manner as is our Magpie, called in some places a Pie-Annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree Goose: which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoyning do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire vnto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses.Moreover, it should seeme that there is another sort hereof; the History of which is true, and of mine owne knowledge; for trauelling vpon the shore of our English coast betweene Douer and Rumney, I found the trunke of an old rotten tree, which (with some helpe that I procured by Fishermen's wiues that were there attending their husbands' returne from the sea) we drew out of the water vpon dry land; vpon this rotten tree I found growing many thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape like vnto puddings newly filled, before they be sodden, which were very cleere and shining; at the nether end whereof did grow a shell fish, fashioned somewhat like a small Muskle, but much whiter, resembling a shell fish that groweth vpon the rockes about Garnsey and Garsey, called a Lympit: many of these shells I brought with me to London, which after I had opened I found in them liuing things without forme or shape; in others which were neerer come to ripenesse I found liuing things that were very naked, in shape like a Bird: in others, the Birds couered with soft downe, the shell halfe open, and the Bird ready to fall out, which no doubt were the Fowles called Barnacles. I dare not absolutely auouch euery circumstance of the first part of this history, concerning the tree that beareth those buds aforesaid, but will leaue it to a further consideration; howbeit, that which I haue seene with mine eies, and handled with minehands, I dare confidently auouch, and boldly put downe for verity. Now if any will object that this tree which I saw might be one of those before mentioned, which either by the waues of the sea or some violent wind had beene ouerturned as many other trees are; or that any trees falling into those seas about the Orchades, will of themselves bear the like Fowles, by reason of those seas and waters, these being so probable conjectures, and likely to be true, I may not without prejudice gainsay, or endeauour to confute.
Hauing trauelled from the Grasses growing in the bottome of the fenny waters, the Woods, and mountaines, euen vnto Libanus itselfe; and also the sea, and bowels of the same, wee are arriued at the end of our History; thinking it not impertinent to the conclusion of the same, to end with one of the maruels of this land (we may say of the World). The history whereof to set forth according to the worthinesse and raritie thereof, would not only require a large and peculiar volume, but also a deeper search into the bowels of Nature, then my intended purpose will suffer me to wade into, my sufficiencie also considered; leauing the History thereof rough hewen, vnto some excellent man, learned in the secrets of nature, to be both fined and refined; in the meane space take it as it falleth out, the naked and bare truth, though vnpolished. There are found in the North parts of Scotland and the Islands adjacent, called Orchades, certaine trees whereon do grow certaine shells of a white colour tending to russet, wherein are contained little liuing creatures: which shells in time of maturity doe open, and out of them grow those little liuing things, which falling into the water do become fowles, which we call Barnacles; in the North of England, brant Geese; and in Lancashire, tree Geese: but the other that do fall vpon the land perish and come to nothing. Thus much by the writings of others, and also from the mouthes of people of those parts, which may very well accord with truth.
But what our eies haue seene, and hands haue touched we shall declare. There is a small Island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships some whereof haue beene cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees, cast vp there likewise; whereon is found a certaine spume or froth that in time breedeth vnto certaine shells, in shape like those of the Muskle,but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour; wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely wouen as it were together, of a whitish colour, one end whereof is fastened vnto the inside of the shell, euen as the fish of Oisters and Muskles are: the other end is made fast vnto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and forme of a Bird: when it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, til at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill: in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a Mallard, and lesser than a Goose, hauing blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such manner as is our Magpie, called in some places a Pie-Annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree Goose: which place aforesaid, and all those parts adjoyning do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire vnto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses.
Moreover, it should seeme that there is another sort hereof; the History of which is true, and of mine owne knowledge; for trauelling vpon the shore of our English coast betweene Douer and Rumney, I found the trunke of an old rotten tree, which (with some helpe that I procured by Fishermen's wiues that were there attending their husbands' returne from the sea) we drew out of the water vpon dry land; vpon this rotten tree I found growing many thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape like vnto puddings newly filled, before they be sodden, which were very cleere and shining; at the nether end whereof did grow a shell fish, fashioned somewhat like a small Muskle, but much whiter, resembling a shell fish that groweth vpon the rockes about Garnsey and Garsey, called a Lympit: many of these shells I brought with me to London, which after I had opened I found in them liuing things without forme or shape; in others which were neerer come to ripenesse I found liuing things that were very naked, in shape like a Bird: in others, the Birds couered with soft downe, the shell halfe open, and the Bird ready to fall out, which no doubt were the Fowles called Barnacles. I dare not absolutely auouch euery circumstance of the first part of this history, concerning the tree that beareth those buds aforesaid, but will leaue it to a further consideration; howbeit, that which I haue seene with mine eies, and handled with minehands, I dare confidently auouch, and boldly put downe for verity. Now if any will object that this tree which I saw might be one of those before mentioned, which either by the waues of the sea or some violent wind had beene ouerturned as many other trees are; or that any trees falling into those seas about the Orchades, will of themselves bear the like Fowles, by reason of those seas and waters, these being so probable conjectures, and likely to be true, I may not without prejudice gainsay, or endeauour to confute.
¶The Place.
The bordes and rotten plankes whereon are found these shels breeding the Barnakle, are taken vp in a small Island adioyning to Lancashire, halfe a mile from the main land, called the Pile of Foulders.
The bordes and rotten plankes whereon are found these shels breeding the Barnakle, are taken vp in a small Island adioyning to Lancashire, halfe a mile from the main land, called the Pile of Foulders.
¶The Time.
They spawn as it were in March and Aprill; the Geese are formed in May and June, and come to fulnesse of feathers in the moneth after.And thus hauing through God's assistance discoursed somewhat at large of Grasses, Herbes, Shrubs, Trees, and Mosses, and certaine Excrescenses of the Earth, with other things moe, incident to the historie thereof, we conclude and end our present Volume, with this wonder of England. For the which God's name be euer honored and praised.
They spawn as it were in March and Aprill; the Geese are formed in May and June, and come to fulnesse of feathers in the moneth after.
And thus hauing through God's assistance discoursed somewhat at large of Grasses, Herbes, Shrubs, Trees, and Mosses, and certaine Excrescenses of the Earth, with other things moe, incident to the historie thereof, we conclude and end our present Volume, with this wonder of England. For the which God's name be euer honored and praised.
Gerard was probably a good botanist and herbalist; but Thomas Johnson, the editor of a subsequent issue of his book, tells us that
"He, out of a propense good will to the publique advancement of this knowledge, endeavoured to performe therein more than he could well accomplish, which was partly through want of sufficient learning; but," he adds, "let none blame him for these defects, seeing he was neither wanting in pains nor good will to performe what hee intended: and there are none so simple but know that heavie burthens are with most paines vndergone by the weakest men; and although there are many faults in the worke, yet iudge well of the Author; for, as a late writer well saith:—'To err and to be deceived is human, and he must seek solitude who wishes to live only with the perfect.'"
"He, out of a propense good will to the publique advancement of this knowledge, endeavoured to performe therein more than he could well accomplish, which was partly through want of sufficient learning; but," he adds, "let none blame him for these defects, seeing he was neither wanting in pains nor good will to performe what hee intended: and there are none so simple but know that heavie burthens are with most paines vndergone by the weakest men; and although there are many faults in the worke, yet iudge well of the Author; for, as a late writer well saith:—'To err and to be deceived is human, and he must seek solitude who wishes to live only with the perfect.'"
It is difficult to comply with the request to think well of one who, writing as an authority, deliberately promulgated, with an affectation of piety, that which he must have known to be untrue, and who was, moreover, a shameless plagiarist; for Gerard's ponderous book is little more than a translation of Dodonæus, whole chapters having been taken verbatim from that comparatively unread author without acknowledgment.
After this series of erroneous observations, self-delusion, and ignorant credulity, it is refreshing to turn to the pages of the two little thick quarto volumes of Gaspar Schott.[93]This learned Jesuit made himself acquainted with everything that had been written on the subject, and besides the authors I have referred to, quotes and compares the statements of Majolus, Abrahamus Ortelius, Hieronymus Cardanus, Eusebius, Nierembergius, Deusingius, Odoricus, Gerhardus de Vera, Ferdinand of Cordova, and many others. He then gives, firmly and clearly, his own opinion that the assertion that birds in Britain spring from the fruit or leaves of trees, or from wood, or from fungus, or from shells, is without foundation, and that neither reason, experience, nor authority tend to confirm it. He concedes that worms may be bred in rotting timber, and even that they may be of a kind that fly away on arriving at maturity (referring probably to caterpillars being developed into moths), but that birds should be thus generated, he says, is simply the repetition of a vulgar error, for not one of the authors whom he has examined has seen what they all affirm; nor are they able to bring forward a single eye-witness of it. He asks how it can be possible that animals so large and so highly-organised as these birdscan grow from puny animalcules generated in putrid wood. He further declares that these British geese are hatched from eggs like other geese, which he considers proved by the testimony of Albertus Magnus, Gerhardus de Vera, and of Dutch seamen, who, in 1569, gave their written declaration that they had personally seen these birds sitting on their eggs, and hatching them, on the coasts of Nova Zembla.