Species

40 Species

Hence also, members of species know “instinctively” how to build nests of a “special

design,” and raise their children.

His empirical bent is further exhibited when he discusses the old myth that the

barnacle goose arises by spontaneous generation from dead wood, a view still held

in the sixteenth century by Julius Scaliger.^36 Frederick says

There is also a small species known as the barnacle goose, arrayed in motley plum-

age... of whose nesting haunts we have no certain knowledge. There is, however, a

curious popular tradition that they spring from dead trees. It is said that in the far north

old ships are to be found in whose rotting hulls a worm is born that develops into the

barnacle goose. This goose hangs from the dead wood by its beak until it is old and

strong enough to y. We have made prolonged research into the origin and truth of this

legend and even sent special envoys to the North with orders to bring back specimens

of those mythical timbers for our inspection. When we examined them we did observe

shell-like formations clinging to the rotten wood, but these bore no resemblance to any

avian body. We therefore doubt the truth of this legend in the absence of corroborating

evidence. In our opinion this superstition arose from the fact that barnacle geese breed

in such remote latitudes that men, in ignorance of their real nesting place, invented this

explanation.^37

As it happens, Branta leucopsis breeds in the northern parts of Europe, in hill-
tops, cliffs, slopes, and islands with nearby coasts or rivers with plenty of grass
and other vegetation to graze. It spends winters in saltmarshes, lowland elds near
coasts, and offshore islands with suitable grassland.^38
So, Frederick is inclined to think that species are caused by generation from par-
ents via sex, rather than accept the view of spontaneous generation for some species,
a view held well into the eighteenth century.^39 Further, he notes that “productive
Nature” formed organs for each species that are benevolent for one species but
malevolent for another, and that it

must be held, then, that for each species, and each individual of the species, Nature

has provided and made, of convenient, suitable, material, organs adapted to individual

requirements. By means of these organs the individual has perfected the functions

needful for himself. It follows, also, that each individual, in accordance with the par-

ticular form of his organs and the characteristics inherent in them, seeks to perform by

means of each organ whatever task is most suitable to the form of that organ.^40

All that is missing here is a claim that the most t will become the most wide-

spread form, and we would have an anticipation of Darwin. However, he regards

identication of species to be a matter of recognition of plumage, and at one point

disagrees with those who reject a particular variety of peregrine based on its plumage

(^36) From Hacking 1983, 70. Cf. also page 37.
(^37) Wood and Fyfe 1943, 51f.
(^38) Cramp 1980.
(^39) Farley 1977.
(^40) Chapter 23-I [Wood and Fyfe 1943, 57].