Note 30 — CHAP. VI.

What so many authors of great note relate of the wood ducks, and affirm to be an unquestionable truth, is by as many learned writers treated as an old woman’s tale, pretending that such an heterogeneal generation passes the ordinary bounds of nature.

Others (in consideration of so many authors of credit, who affirm that they have been eye witnesses to this strange and wonderful generation) have taken great pains to demonstrate the causes and probability of it physically and philosophically, amongst whom is the learned father Kirkerus, in his Mundus Subterraneus; where he maintains, that the semen of this extraordinary generation is neither contained in those old pieces of wood, that drive in the sea, nor in the muscles originally; for a piece of wood cannot produce a living animal, this exceeding the virtue nature has endowed it with; much less the summer froth of the sea, which adheres to the rotten piece of wood, and may produce shells or muscles. Then he forms the question, from whence comes this semen or seed, which produces such a strange fruit as a living bird? which question he strives thus to resolve; that, whereas he has been informed by certain Dutchmen’s journals or voyages into the Northern seas, that this sort of birds, peculiar to that climate, make their nest and lay their eggs upon the ice; when the ice by the heat of the sun thaws and breaks asunder, this innumerable quantity of eggs are likewise mashed and crushed to pieces and beaten about by the waves; and that if that part of the egg, which contains the seed, encounters any subject matter proper to foment and brood it, and is received in it loco nutricis, assisted by the temperament of the air, the earth, or the sea, it becomes in due time a perfect bird. This is the renowned father Kirkerus’s notion concerning the generation of these birds. But if one examines his reasoning, it is found altogether incoherent: for it was never known, that sea fowls lay their eggs upon the naked ice, but commonly upon the islands and rocks in the sea, which are surrounded and sometimes covered with ice; and consequently when the ice breaks, and drives away from the islands, the eggs remain still in their nest, without receiving any hurt. And thus the Dutch found it at Nova Zembla, in the year 1569; but what they saw was not the right sort of wood ducks, but what they in Norway call gield ducks; for wood ducks never are seen to couple, nor to lay or hatch their eggs. Secondly, it seems no less absurd to maintain, that eggs, after they are mashed in pieces, and beaten about by the waves, retain as much seminal virtue as will serve to procreate a bird. From whence I infer, that either the information the good father had got from the Dutch voyages was intirely groundless, or this pretended generation goes beyond the bounds of nature. As to the first inference, it is not impossible that the authors who relate this story may have been imposed upon by a common though false report of vulgar and ignorant people; as any one may, that takes a thing for granted upon a bare hearsay, without the attestation of eye witnesses in such a matter. For my part I do not doubt at all of this wonderful generation; for though I have not beheld it with my own eyes, yet I have met with many honest and reasonable men in my native country, who have assured me, that they have found pieces of old, rotten, driven wood in the sea, upon which there hang muscles, in some of which they saw young birds, some half formed, others in full perfection and shape. From whence I conclude, that those fowls spring from no other seed than some clammy and viscous matter floating in the sea, precipitated upon pieces of old rotten wood as aforesaid; of which there is first formed a muscle, and then a little worm in the muscle shell; from whence at last a bird proceeds. And although this may seem to exceed the ordinary bounds set by nature in the procreation of other birds, yet it is observed and confessed, that the sea produces many strange and surprising things, and even living animals, which we cannot affirm to have had being from the first creation; but that by virtue of the primitive blessing God gave the sea to produce, it may yet bring forth many uncommon and wonderful things; as for example, many sorts of sea insects, viz. crabs and the like. And thus the sea or water in general may with reason be stiled pater et mater rerum; i. e. “the common parent of things.” Nature seems to delight sometimes in forming out-of-the-way things: thus we see divers insects formed out of the very dung of animals; some of which insects often change their kind and shape, viz. from a small worm into a flying animal; as flies, beetles, butterflies, and so forth.