40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY Or 



58. Strepsilas interpras, (Linnaeus.) 

 Tringa interpras, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 148. 



Wilson, Am. Orn. vii. pi. 57 ; Gould, B. of Eur. iv, pi. 318. 

 Precisely similar to specimens from the coast of New Jersey, 

 From Corisco Island. 



59. NuMENius PH^OPUS, (Linnaeus.) 

 Scolopax phasopus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 243. 

 Gould, B. of Eur. iv. pi. 303. 



From Corisco Bay, mouth of the Muni. 



GO. PODICA SENEGALENSIS, (Vieillot.) 



Heliornis senegalensis, Vieill. Nouv. Diet. xiv. p. 277. 

 Lath. Gen. Hist. x. pi. 164; Gray, Gen. iii. pL 172. 



Gl. Sterna senegalensis, Swainson. 



Sterna senegalensis, Swains. B. of W. Af. ii. p. 250. 



Scarcely different from the European, Sterna Idrundo. A single specimen 

 from the island of Corisco, mouth of the Muni. 



On the Crania of the Ancient Britons, with Semarks on the People themselves. 

 BY JOSEPH BARNARD DAVIS. 



It was the distinguished and excellent Professor Samuel George Morton, who, 

 by his industry, skill and great attainments, mainly developed what may be de- 

 nominated the science of Comparative Cranioscopy, as applied to ancient and 

 extinct races of men. And we deem it an especial honor to be permitted to 

 address that learned body before which Morton's chief discoveries in this science 

 were first announced — an Academy which had the surpassing advantage of 

 numbering him among its Presidents. But in venturing thus to address the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia upon a subject congenial to those 

 so admirably illustrated by its late President, and therefore in some measure 

 following in his steps, it must be distinctlj'' announced in limine^ that it is not 

 with any pretensions whatever to co-equal powers, or co-equal learning. 



The Ancient Britons, the aboriginal people of the British Isles, are a race of 

 whose physical characters we can learn little or nothing from classical writers, 

 whether Greek or Roman. The very little knowledge to be acquired is only 

 incidental, never direct — imparted as it were by accident. They were a people 

 divided into a number of tribes, living chiefly by the chase and the products of 

 the rivers and the sea ; yet not devoid of both pastoral and agricultural habits. 

 They are known to us mainly from presenting a serious obstacle for ages to the 

 arms of the conquerors of the world — imperfectly subdued with much difficulty, 

 and only held in subjection by the most consummate stratagems of the military 

 art of the Romans. To account for their first appearance in the Islands, many 

 ingenious and learned theories of immigration have been broached, all of which 

 are exposed to a serious objection, independent of failing to suggest any reason- 

 able motive for such primordial migration, viz : that they are based upon a 

 point, instead of a broad and solid foundation — they invert the order of nature, 

 and make use of the result and the superstructure to give the substratum which 

 is required. They all suppose man, in his most primitive and most helpless 

 condition, to have been endowed and furnished with apjiliances and arts, which 

 are only the result of development and cultivation. And, like the similar fan- 

 ciful speculations which would derive the Indian tribes of the American continent 

 from the eastern one, are obnoxious to the objection of being gratuitous and 

 superfluous. Their inventors can give no valid reason, based on solid ethno- 

 logical ground, why the assumed migrations may not have pursued a diametri- 

 cally opposite course. This being the case, we have a right to maintain, that 

 there is a decided preponderance on either one side or the other, and an equal 

 reason to assume for the primitive inhabitants of the British Islands an aboriginal 

 and primordial character not inferior to that of any other race. 



[Feb. 



