Bii John Beddoe, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., &c. 41 



that they, for the time, abandoned the contest in despair. 



Mahnesbury certainly does come out darker in colour than 

 places east, north, or south of it. So do Calne, Bradford, and 

 Trowbridge, and the town, not the district, of Devizes : Devizes, 

 however, did not exist till after the Norman conquest. But we 

 must bear in mind that old towns, even small ones, tend to suffer 

 a darkening of their population through processes of selection. 



My argument from the proportion of villans or churls to the 

 lower classes, if worth anything at all, should support Bishop 

 Bi'owne's view, for there are fewer villans within the Bristol Avon 

 watershed, as a whole. 



Clearly the population of Wiltshire resembles that of the south- 

 east rather than that of the south-west of England. The most 

 distinct ethnical frontier hereabout is near the western edge of 

 Wiltshire, beyond which lies a hilly and difficult and well-wooded 

 country connected with the Mendip Hills. Ceawlin is generally 

 supposed to have conquered this, but the name of Englishcombe 

 village, as Dr. Guest pointed out, is strongly adverse to this view 

 — and black hair, rare in Wiltshire, is quite common in East 

 Somerset, from the Chew to the Frome. 



All the foregoing lines of investigation concur in indicating that 

 the Wiltshire folk are a mixture, not quite thoroughly amalgamated, 

 of the Saxofrisiau and the Iberobritish races, the contributions of 

 the bronze brachykephal and of the Franco-Norman, of the Kymric 

 Welshman, of the Gypsy, being but little in evidence. Pure 

 specimens of the bronze type, such as one frequently encounters 

 in Cornwall, are very uncommon here. Hence, I suppose, the 

 lowness of the kephalic index, the smoothness of the brows, and 

 the absence of strongly-marked cheek-bones and prominent noses. 

 I cherish a hypothesis that, the tribal organization not having been 

 quite destroyed by the Komans, the upper or military caste may 

 still have been largely either of bronze or of Belgic type, and may 

 have emigrated westwards before the Saxon conquerors, leaving 

 behind the serfs, mainly of the modified Iberian type, to serve 

 their new masters and in course of ages to amalgamate with them. 



