Nearly every one is familiar with the myth prevalent on our sea-coasts, respecting the Barnacle Goose. The popular belief was, and indeed is still in some places, that the fruits on branches which hang into the sea become changed into shell-covered creatures called barnacles, found incrusting these submerged branches; and further, that these barnacles are in process of time transformed into the birds known as barnacle geese. This belief was not confined to the vulgar; it was received among naturalists. Nor was it with them simply an adopted rumour. It was based on observations which were recorded and approved by the highest scientific authorities, and published with their countenance. In a paper contained in the _Philosophical Transactions_, Sir Robert Moray says:—“In every shell that I opened . . . there appeared nothing wanting, as to the external parts, for making up a perfect sea-fowl; the little bill like that of a goose, the eyes marked, the head, neck, breast, wings, tail, and feet formed, the feathers everywhere perfectly shaped and blackish coloured, and the feet like those of other {163} waterfowl, to my best remembrance.” Now this myth respecting the barnacle goose has been exploded for some century and a half. To a modern zoologist who examines one of these cirrhipeds, as the barnacles are called, it seems scarcely credible that it could ever have been thought a chick; and what Sir Robert Moray could have taken for “head, neck, breast, wings, tail, feet, and feathers,” he cannot imagine. Under the influence of a pre-conception, here is a man of education describing as “a perfect sea-fowl” what is now known to be a modified crustacean—a creature belonging to a remote part of the animal kingdom.