312 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 



implement, sayiug that such a specimen would be worth 

 a good bit of money. Jack is said to have looked at 

 the sketch and declared he had once come across a 

 thing like it which he had sold to a gentleman, etc. 

 The next time he came round he produced a flint corre- 

 sponding accurately with the drawing and claimed his 

 reward. The money was paid to him and he was told 

 how he had been entrapped ; but he saw the joke of the 

 thing and enjoyed it very much ! 



The trade of " Hint-knapping " has been carried on at 

 Brandon time out of mind. The " floor-Hint," as it 

 is thereabout called, produces the hardest and finest 

 quality, and I believe it is known that even before 

 gun-flints came into use, flints for common strike-a- 

 light purposes were manufactured there to a great 

 extent. In more recent times almost the whole supply 

 of gun -flints has come from that place, and a very 

 curious thing is that there is still a demand (only very 

 limited in these days) for them, but goodness knows 

 whence it comes and whither they go. ... In that 

 neighbourhood it is not worth while to make forgeries ; 

 you can't do it properly with an iron hammer (as the 

 gun-flints are made) and the dull new surface is always 

 recognisable. It takes centuries to put on the proper 

 patina^ and if polishing is attempted it is almost always 

 overdone. The best imitation is produced by rubbing 

 the fracture with a bit of cheese, but naturally that can 

 be as quickly removed by the finger, and then you 

 have the dull surface again. Besides this, in the majority 

 of cases the colour of the fracture is affected by age — 

 sometimes remarkably so. 



Yours very truly, 



Alfred Newton. 



A.N. to J. A. Harvie-Brown 



Lowestoft, 



November 17, 1900. 



There must be plenty of analogies between the 

 migrations of Fishes and of Birds, yet I should suppose 



