SUPPOSED INSCRIPTION UPON THE FONT AT WILNE. Igt 
in the centre compartment is, I think, regarding his own tail, signs 
of which remain near his muzzle ; and it is possible that he has a 
bird’s head. The two awkward jaws of his right-hand neighbour 
may be one side of an oval loop formed by his tail, an arrange- 
ment which exists in the case of the animal whose fore half is 
shown on the left side. The jaws are too awkward for anything 
on this or any of the English sculptured stones of any importance, 
where the skill and knowledge shown are very great. Even the 
frame of mind of a bird is shown in a graphic manner, as may be 
seen on the Wilne Font, where the buoyant spirits of the pair of 
birds which are being allowed to feed are shewn as clearly as the 
gloomy despondency of the pair whose beaks are sealed. 
At the risk of appearing fanciful, I must point out the curious 
resemblances between details of this belt of subjects and the 
Bayeux tapestry. To begin with a coincidence no doubt acci- 
dental, they are of the same width, a little more than nineteen 
inches. The tapestry has an upper border and a lower, and it is 
to the details of these that the resemblance is striking. The 
borders are divided into spaces by means of lines of colour, in- 
clined to one another in such a way, that if they were continued 
upwards and downwards alternately, they would form isoceles 
triangles. In the larger portions of these triangles which form the 
border there are animals and birds, one in each asa rule, while 
the smaller spaces, being the parts of the triangles near the vertex, 
have merely a small trefoil leaf, or a small cross, there being no 
room for a beast or bird. The birds are in many cases in curious 
attitudes, and their wings are curiously disposed. There is a bird 
above the word cas/ellum in the legend . . . wut foderetur 
castellum at Hestenga very surprisingly like the bird in the lower 
triangle the left of fig. 2, the unusual contour of neck and 
the sharp angle in the outline of the wing being specially notice- 
able ; it is a very curious coincidence that the triangle in which 
the Wolverhampton bird is has the same base and nearly the 
same dimensions as that on the tapestry. The bird in the upper 
triangle to the left hand in fig. 2, of which it is literally difficult 
to make head or tail, is very like a bird under the scene where 
