334 « Abury Notes.” 
Stukeley’s account of this latter avenue derives not unimportant 
confirmation from these recollections of the “ ancient Clements,” 
who probably in his boyhood was an eyewitness of Dr. Stukeley’s 
surveys. 
StukELEy’s “ Dracontium.” 
It is probable that after the statements and plans of Twining, 
Stukeley, and Lucas, with respect to the (so-called) Beckhampton 
Avenue, there will always be persons disposed to believe in the ex- 
istence of an avenue of stones on that side of Abury, although they 
may not be in accord as to the distance to which it may have ex- 
tended from the great circle in that direction. 
Whatever views may be entertained in this respect by present or 
future antiquaries, it is to be hoped that the Dracontian theory, 
which Stukeley propounded, may be allowed to die out, never to be © 
revived. Sir Richard C. Hoare acquiesced in it in an unhesitating 
and unenquiring spirit ; but Mr. Algernon Herbert rose against it, 
and scouted it in no measured terms: ‘‘ Before these extravagances 
[the connection of the name of Abury with Abiri] had been broached, 
Dr. Stukeley had maintained that the avenue was a serpent, and the 
terminal circle its head. That has been adopted for a fact; anti- 
quaries now talk as freely of the serpent of Abury as of the sphinx 
in Egypt; and until lately, I had slumbered in acquiescence to this 
‘generally received, but gross deception” (p. 104). “ It was easy 
for him to show, that all ages and religions had notions concerning 
a serpent, but he felt that he made no progress by a parade of such 
learning. All the world talked about serpents; but from the be- 
ginning of the world to his days, no human being had ever heard 
of a building laid out in the shape of a serpent. His ‘ Odews 
Kegadn” in Beeotia had nothing to do with a serpent’s body, only 
with his head; and it was no representation of his head, but a mark 
of the spot where his head had been cut off. Paus.,ix.c. 19. It 
was of small use to say that Apollo’s killing the serpent Python 
signified ‘ Phut’s building an enormous serpentine temple,’ and that 
Hercules healing a wound he had received, by the virtues of the — 
herb dracunculus! can be understood no otherwise than that Hercules 
1A species of Arum. 
