“But what our eyes haue seene and hands haue touched, we shall declare. There is a small island in Lancashire, called the pile of Foulders, wherein we find the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some wherof haue been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees cast up there likewise; whereon is found a certaine spawne or froth that in time breedeth unto certain shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper-pointed, wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely wouen together as it were. One end thereof is fastened into a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and form of a Birde. When it is perfectly formed the shel 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 shel by degrees til at length it is all come forth and hangeth onely by the bill: in short space after it commeth to ful maturitie, and falleth into the sea, when it gathereth feathers and groweth to a Fowle bigger than a Mallard and lesser than a Goose, hauing blacke legs and bill and beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such manner as is our magpie, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose: which place therof and all those parts adioining doe so much abound therewith that one of the best is bought for threepence. For the truth wherof, if any doubt, may it please them to repair unto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimony of good witnesses.” On reading the foregoing one can only wonder what the old fellow really did see on this wild sea shore amidst the wreckage: that he wrote in the most perfect good faith, and in the strongest belief in this “Maruell,” is perfectly evident. That he has no desire to practise on our credulity is patent, but it is equally patent that his own credulity got the better of his judgment. He goes on to tell us that on another occasion, near Dover, he found on the sea shore an old tree-trunk covered with “thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape like unto puddings newly filled, and at the nether end therof did grow a shelfish fashioned somewhat like a small muskle.” Many of these shells he brought back with him to London, and on opening them he tells us that he found “liuing things that were very naked, shaped like a bird: in others the birds couered with a soft doune, the shel halfe open, and the bird ready to fall out; which no doubt were the fowles called Barnakles.”