Alvin F. Harlow

“ THE barnacle goose, which is a wild goose quite common in northern Europe, was given its name centuries ago because of a curious and inexplicable superstition; which was nothing less than that barnacles, the tiny shell-fish which attach themselves to ships' bottoms or floating timbers, eventually turn into geese! Barnacles are curious little mollusks which fasten themselves by a fleshy peduncle usually to wooden ships, and sometimes in such quantities that the ship must be put in dry dock and the hull scraped. ”

“ Many people in early days did not believe that these mollusks reproduced themselves, but fancied that they grew in some sort of spontaneous manner on tree trunks or in the crevices of decaying timber. ”