The value of Gerard’s work must inevitably be at a discount, when we realise that it is impossible, from internal evidence, to accept him as a credible witness. His oft-quoted account of the “Goose tree,” “Barnakle tree,” or the “tree bearing Geese,” removes what little respect one may have felt for him as a scientist, not so much because he held an absurd belief, which was widely accepted at the time, but rather because he went out of his way to state that it was confirmed by his own observations! He gives a figure to illustrate the origin of the Geese (Text-fig. 54), which is not, however, original. Gerard relates how trees, actually bearing shells which open and hatch out barnacle geese, occur in the “Orchades[20],” but he states that on this point he has no first-hand knowledge. He proceeds, however, to remark, “But what our eies have seene, and hands have touched, we shall declare. There is a small Ilande in Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken peeces of old and brused ships, some whereof have beene cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks or bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees, cast up there likewise: wheron is found a certaine spume or froth, that in time breedeth unto certaine shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour; wherein is conteined a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely woven, as it were togither, of a whitish colour; one ende whereof is fastned unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of Oisters and Muskles are; the other ende is made fast unto 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 shel gapeth open, and the first thing that appeereth is the foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the Birde hanging out; and as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come foorth, 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 foule, bigger then a Mallard, and lesser than a Goose.” The fable of the Goose Tree was rejected in the later editions of Gerard’s ‘Herball,’ published after the author’s death. It reappears, however, late in the seventeenth century, in the ‘Historia Naturalis’ of John Jonston. The legend is of respectable antiquity, being found in various early chronicles. Sebastian Muenster, for example, in his ‘Cosmographia[21],’ printed at Basle in 1545, refers to it as recorded by previous writers, and figures a tree with pendent fruits, out of which geese are dropping into a lake or stream. [Illustration: Text-fig. 54. “The breede of Barnakles” [Gerard, The Herball, 1597].]