PATELLID^l. LIMPET. 175 



The Patellidce were also among the shellfish eaten 

 by the ancients ; Diphilus says they have a pleasant 

 flavour, are easily digested, and when boiled are 

 particularly nice.* It is a curious fact, and one which 

 is puzzling to archaeologists, that limpet shells should 

 be found in such abundance in cromlechs, both in the 

 Channel Islands and in Brittany, surrounding the 

 remains of the dead, often covering the bones, skulls, 

 &c, to the depth of two and three feet in thickness. 

 Mr. F. C. Lukis, in the l Journal of the Archaeological 

 Association ' (vol. i. p. 28), mentions finding limpet- 

 shells, mixed with earth, round the bones in the Crom- 

 lech du Tus, or de Hus, Guernsey. Again, in a Cromlech 

 in Jersey, discovered in April, 1848, Mr. Lukis adds 

 that there is a difficulty in solving the great question — 

 why such a mass of limpet shells should invariably 

 accompany these abodes of the dead ? They are found 

 not only in the earliest deposits, but also amongst the 

 more recent, f 



The term " Cromlech," as applied to the Cromlech du 

 Tus, is a local name, used in the Channel Islands for a 

 subterranean chamber, lined with upright slabs, covered 

 by a roof of one or more slabs of stone, with a long 

 passage leading to it, formed in like manner of upright 

 slabs covered by large lintels, over which has been 

 raised a tumulus of earth; while our term Cromlech 

 is applied to those covered by one capstone only, with- 

 out any passage leading to them. J Those consisting 

 of chambers and a long entrance passage covered by 

 slabs, within a large tumulus of earth, as at Wellow, 



* Athenoeus, 'Deipn.' vol. i. bk. iii. p. 152. 

 t ' Journal of the Archaeological Association/ vol. iv. p. 336. 

 t See Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, ' British Remains on Dartmoor ' 

 1 Journal of the Archaeological Association,' vol. xviii. 1863. 



