The “Cosmography” of Munster supplies us with the graceful illustration which we have reproduced in facsimile in fig. 17. It is a far more charming representation than either of the others we have given. In the drawing the whole process may be clearly traced, from the immature and unopened fruit to that sufficiently ripe to give some indication of its strange contents in the form of the protruding head of the coming bird, and then on again to the geese actually fallen in the water, and more or less freeing themselves from the encumbering husk, until finally we see them in all respects fit and proper subjects for the ornithologist or the salesman of Leadenhall Market. Munster states in his book that “in Scotland we find trees, the fruit of which appears like a ball of leaves. This fruit, falling at its proper time into the water below, becomes animated, and turns to a bird which they call the tree-goose.” [Illustration: FIG. 17.] Æneas Sylvius, afterwards better known to the world as Pope Pius II., visited Scotland in the year 1468, and while there made diligent inquiry concerning this wonderful tree, but found that no one could point it out to him. As the general impression that one gathers on reading his account of his travels is that he appeared in Scotland rather as a seeker after knowledge than as the recipient of a wonderful story till then unknown to him, we must conclude that the myth had spread considerably beyond the land of its origin. In fact, as we often find even unto the present day, in divers matters the intelligent stranger is often able to enlighten the natives on matters in which we might reasonably have expected to find them well informed. Who, for instance, would ever dream of asking the nearest resident to a cathedral anything of its history, or seeking from “the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain” any light on the mysterious origin of Stonehenge? William Turner, one of the earliest writers on ornithology, described the barnacle-goose as being produced from “something like a fungus growing from old wood lying in the sea,” and quotes Giraldus Cambrensis as his authority. “Having uncomfortable misgivings I asked,” he writes, “a certain clergyman named Octavianus, by birth an Irishman, whom I knew to be worthy of credit, if he thought the account of Giraldus was to be believed. He, swearing by the Gospel, declared that which Giraldus had written about the bird was most true: that he had himself seen and handled the young unformed birds, and that if I would remain in London a month or two he would bring me some of the brood.” Whether Turner was satisfied by the very unsatisfying proof of the production of some dubious ducks in London, or by the solemn declaration and oaths taken on the Gospels by his reverent informant, we have no means of knowing, but as he inserts the wonder in his book, he was evidently relieved from his previous doubt of the veracity of the story.