Others (in consideration of so many authors of credit, who affirm that they have been eye witnesses to this strange and wonderful generation) have taken great pains to demonstrate the causes and probability of it physically and philosophically, amongst whom is the learned father Kirkerus, in his Mundus Subterraneus; where he maintains, that the semen of this extraordinary generation is neither contained in those old pieces of wood, that drive in the sea, nor in the muscles originally; for a piece of wood cannot produce a living animal, this exceeding the virtue nature has endowed it with; much less the summer froth of the sea, which adheres to the rotten piece of wood, and may produce shells or muscles. Then he forms the question, from whence comes this semen or seed, which produces such a strange fruit as a living bird? which question he strives thus to resolve; that, whereas he has been informed by certain Dutchmen’s journals or voyages into the Northern seas, that this sort of birds, peculiar to that climate, make their nest and lay their eggs upon the ice; when the ice by the heat of the sun thaws and breaks asunder, this innumerable quantity of eggs are likewise mashed and crushed to pieces and beaten about by the waves; and that if that part of the egg, which contains the seed, encounters any subject matter proper to foment and brood it, and is received in it loco nutricis, assisted by the temperament of the air, the earth, or the sea, it becomes in due time a perfect bird. This is the renowned father Kirkerus’s notion concerning the generation of these birds. But if one examines his reasoning, it is found altogether incoherent: for it was never known, that sea fowls lay their eggs upon the naked ice, but commonly upon the islands and rocks in the sea, which are surrounded and sometimes covered with ice; and consequently when the ice breaks, and drives away from the islands, the eggs remain still in their nest, without receiving any hurt. And thus the Dutch found it at Nova Zembla, in the year 1569; but what they saw was not the right sort of wood ducks, but what they in Norway call gield ducks; for wood ducks never are seen to couple, nor to lay or hatch their eggs. Secondly, it seems no less absurd to maintain, that eggs, after they are mashed in pieces, and beaten about by the waves, retain as much seminal virtue as will serve to procreate a bird. From whence I infer, that either the information the good father had got from the Dutch voyages was intirely groundless, or this pretended generation goes beyond the bounds of nature. As to the first inference, it is not impossible that the authors who relate this story may have been imposed upon by a common though false report of vulgar and ignorant people; as any one may, that takes a thing for granted upon a bare hearsay, without the attestation of eye witnesses in such a matter. For my part I do not doubt at all of this wonderful generation; for though I have not beheld it with my