Transactions. 91 



narrated aViove. They are also alluded to in the Rev. Win. 

 Morris' " Yorkshire Folk-Talk," who mentions a custom I have 

 not met with before — the practice of providing the bees with part 

 of the arval, or funeral entertainment ; a small portion of every 

 item of the feast — including even salt, mustard, wine, tobacco, and 

 pipes — were put on a plate, and placed in a convenient spot near 

 the bees. Mr M. on one occasion expressed his surprise to an old 

 woman at tobacco being given, and asked if they ate it. " Aye," 

 she said, " ah seed it mysen." " Well, at all events, the bees 

 could not eat the pipes," said Mr M. " But they did, 'owevver." 

 " How in the world could they do that ? " he asked. " Aw," she 

 exclaimed, " they teeak a steean an' mash'd 'em up into a poodher, 

 an' mixed it wi' th' stuff an' gav it tiv 'em." '' And did they eat it 

 clean up?" he asked. " Aye. hivvry bit, ah seed it mysen." Mr 

 M. remarks, " it was evidently thought that it was their being fed 

 in this way alone that had preserved them from dying with their 

 master." In a letter I received from the Eev. Dr Stewart, Nether 

 Lochaber, he mentions a curious superstition : '• The only super- 

 stition atout bees in the West Highlands is not about the hive liee, 

 but about the large ground wild bee, Bomhex Terrest. In the 

 popular superstition these are believed to be a large company of 

 Finglian heroes under enchantment of a powerful sorceress in the 

 North. Their stings are their swords. They are destined yet to 

 disenchantment, once again assuming- their proper forms, and then 

 they will drive all foreigners out of the country I The allusion is 

 probably to the old Viking times." 



VI. — Notice, of i-arious Antiquities found in Dumfriesshire, and now 

 jweserved in the National Museum in Edinburgh. By GeORGE 



F. Black, Ph.D. 



In a former paper communicated to the Society I described 

 the prehistoric antiquities of stone and bronze from Dumfriesshire 

 preserved in the National Collection, and in the present notice I 

 propose to describe the miscellaneous objects of later date. 



SCULPTURED UROSS-SHAFT. 

 The first specimen to be described is the portion of sculptured 

 cross-shaft discovered in 1815 in taking down the walls of the old 

 Church of Hoddam, supposed to have been dedicated t<J St. 



