arbob low. 287 



Profpssor Boyd Dawkins tells us moreover, " the face was shaven, and 

 the beard, moustaches, or whiskers, were sometimes plucked out. The 

 hair was worn long, and arranged into a pyramid sufficiently large, in 

 some cases, to admit of the use of a hair-pin twenty inches long. So 

 careful were they of their coiffure, that they are proved, in the lake 

 dwellings of Switzerland, to have used head-rests made of pottery," like 

 African dandies of the present day, " to prevent its being disarranged in 

 sleep. Ear-rings and necklaces were also worn, and pendants and 

 amulets made of stone and bone as well as of bronze and glass." Space does 

 not allow me to describe the scene enacted at the funeral of some great 

 chief amongst these savages, the gathering of the clan, the piled-up pyre, 

 surmounted by the dead body, the funeral feast and its orgies, the 

 building of the cist and the placing in it of ornaments, pottery, and 

 weapons ; and lastly, the heaping up of the great mound. It is to this 

 age that, in my opinion, Arbor Low probably belongs. First possibly 

 erected and used as a burial-place, and then, through reverence for the 

 departed ancestor, coming to be regarded as a sacred spot where religious 

 services might be held, and the dead brought for cremation and 

 interment. 



The etymology of the name presents considerable difficulty ; not the 

 "Low," however, for that comes from the A. S. hlcew or hldiv, a heap, 

 barrow, or small hill, and is connected with hlifian, whence our verb 

 " to lift." Sir J. Lubbock considers Arbor to be the same word as 

 Abury. This is hard to see, and many will consider me bold to differ 

 from such an authority ; I have, however, the Professor of Anglo-Saxon 

 at Cambridge to rely on. Mr. Charles Cox says " that tradition has 

 long maintained that an important battle between the Britons and the 

 Romans was fought on Hartington Moor, and that in the pronunciation 

 of the name of this low, those living nearest to the spot not unfrequently 

 sound it as though spelt Artor or Arthur," so that these facts favour Mr. 

 Fergusson's conjecture, that Arbor Low marks the site of one of King 

 Arthur's great battles. Unlikely as I think this idea to be, I mention 

 it as a suggested way out of a difficulty.* 



THE AUTUMN AND WINTEE MIGEATOEY BIEDS 

 OF BODICOTE, OXFOEDSHIEE. 



BY OLIVER V. APLIN. 



By autumn and winter visitors I would mean those birds which are 

 either to be seen here only in autumn or winter, or have occurred but 

 very rarely at other seasons, and are usually considered in the light of 

 winter birds. Several species — such as the Starling, Lark, Missel 

 Thrush, Lapwing, &c. — receive large additions to their numbers in 

 winter ; but, of course, are as much residents as any others, and, there - 



* Bead before the Nottingham Literary and Philosophical Society at Arbor 

 Low, July 8th, 1880. 



