Recent Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c., on Wiltshire Matters. 203 
the site of the Swanborough Hundred court, and Foxley Corner that of the 
court of the Hundred of Stodfolde. The Rev. A. P. Morres gives a long and 
interesting note on the large Sea Eagle lately seen at Salisbury, from which 
it appears that this specimen, or another of the same species, was seen by 
Mr. Bennett Stanford on Jan. 22nd, at “Great Ridge,” on the Fonthill 
estate, whilst Mr. Morres supposes that the Salisbury bird was also the one 
seen later on in Devonshire. The Wiltshire extracts from the Gentleman’s 
Magazine are continued—Mr. Kite begins an account of John Stafford, 
Archbishop of Canterbury—and the first part of an account of the Child 
family and their connection with Heddington also appears, illustrated by a 
reduced reproduction of Stukeley’s view of the place. 
“Stonehenge and its Earthworks.’ In a 4to pamphlet of 11 pp., dated 
bp 4 eS 
April, 1897, Mr. Edgar Barclay, the author of the work bearing the above 
title, published in 1895, prints a’series of replies to the criticisms passed on 
his theories and conclusions, under the somewhat enigmatic motto “ Veritas 
Tempora Filia.”’ He argues that his theory that the cursus was the camping 
ground of the strangers who came to take part in the Stonehenge solemnities 
is more plausible than any other. So far, however, as one can see the only 
arguments that he adduces in its favour are, that there are only two barrows 
within the cursus, that it is near the River Avon, and that the fortified 
positions of Durrington Walls and Vespasian’s Camp command the path from 
the cursus to the water, and would, therefore, serve to keep the crowds of 
strangers, whom he pictures as camping in the cursus, in order. Again, he 
argues that his theory that the erection of Stonehenge was the work of a 
“brief transitional period’ in the time of Agricola, is supported by the 
analogy of the trilithons with similar erections in Tripoli, some of which 
have Roman ruins connected with them, because “southern ideas and 
innovations in temple building could only have spread northwards with the 
advance of Roman dominion.’ If this is so it seems to follow that all 
dolmens, circles, and other megalithic remains must also belong to the 
Roman age, inasmuch as they exist both in the North and South—in 
Northern Africa and Syria, as well as in France, Britain, and Denmark. 
He relies also on the “presence of foreign stones” as “ telling of foreign 
assistance,’ and says “ without assistance these same tribesmen could never 
have obtained the foreign blue stones; are we to presume that the rude 
Celtic shepherds and herdsmen of Salisbury Plain had ships at their 
command?” Here again, as in his book, he ignores the geological evidence 
lately adduced on the highest authority that all the “foreign” stones may 
very well have come from Devonshire, and never crossed the sea at all. 
Moreover, on page 7 he himself speaks of the existence of a regular coasting 
trade in pre-Roman times between Cornwall and the Isle of Thanet. As to 
the Durrington interment with a flint “spear head,’ &c., under a sarsen 
stone, which one of his critics appears to have brought forward as evidence 
of the Neolithic date of Stonehenge, Mr. Barclay is at much pains to argue 
that this interment itself must have been of the same date as the Romano- 
British Durrington settlement, close to which it was found. There seems, 
however, no reason why it should not have belonged to a far earlier age, but 
