NOTES ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 47 



as a regular thing in their daily work, not the commercial fishing-hooks as Ave 

 know them, but the primitive common white tliorns, cut from the hedgerows, 

 whicli were, when bound in horsehair to the hne, in their turn baited in the 

 ordinary way. It is their usual mode of fishing for flat-fish, and they seem to see 

 nothing strange or quaint about it. Their mode of operation is to get two upright 

 sticks, and thrust them in the ground some eighteen or nineteen yards apart. A 

 line is stretched from stick to stick, from which line on horsehair hang twenty 

 hooks two feet six inches apart, duly baited with the worms. Each horsehair 

 line is composed of eleven twisted hairs. The whole affair may be understood 

 from the roujrh sketch." 



*f^" 



Lake Dwellings and " Dug-Out " Boat. — Extensive 

 remains of prehistoric Lake-dwellings exist in the (? alluvial) bed 

 of the River Save, near Dolina, in Northern Bosnia, which in 

 interest tall in no way behind the better-known remains of 

 such settlements in Switzerland, and the record mav serve to 

 illustrate like settlements in the Lea Valley and at Braintree. 

 The Standard of December 31st, 1901, reported on these Bosnian 

 dwellings as follows : — 



"The excavations made during the year now ending have surpassed all 

 expectations in regard to the wealth of material obtained for the Bosnian Museum 

 at Saravejo. Four dwelling-houses built on piles— three of which are well 

 preserved, while one has been buried — have been laid bare, as well as the burvinir 

 place belonging to the settlement, containing a number of fine bronzes and urns. 

 Numerous jiroducts of the potter's art, utensils of staghorn, weapons of bronze 

 and iron, ornaments of bronze, silver, gold, and amber, seeds, and bones, 

 compose the chief discoveries made so far. The results of these researches have a 

 special value, in that they have determined the architectural construction of the 

 pile dwellings with an accuracy which has seldom been attainable. One of the 

 most valuable discoveries is a bo:it five metres long, hollowed out of the trunk of 

 an oak. This was found lying nine metres below the platform of a pile dwelling, 

 and must have lain there nearly three thousand years. The work of digging out 

 this unique object, Mhich can be matched in no Museum of Europe, took six days, 

 and was so successfully carried out that the boat was brought uninjured to the 

 Saravejo Museum. The pile dwellings of Dolina belong to two different periods, 

 and were in existence during the bronze and iron ages." 



MISCELLANEA. 

 A Plea for the Oysters. — In the Times of December 31st, 

 1902, there is a letter signed " Susan Eliza Helena Martin, 

 L.S.A., L.L.A.," with the above heading. The writer remarks 

 that " Few people know how to prepare oysters for the table 

 properly ; if they did the fear of typhoid would be very remote 

 indeed." The directions are as follows : — 



"First immerse the shells in a large tub of pure, cold water, and allow some to 

 run over them for a few minutes, perfectly cleansing them. Then drain the water 



