50 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSCA. 



shells, often amounting to some tons in weight, were 

 noticed by Dr. Darwin, which had at different periods 

 formed the chief food of the inhabitants.* 



These remind us of the so-called kjb'kkenmod dings 

 (kitchen heaps) of Denmark, or shell-mounds, to which 

 the attention of archaeologists has been recently at- 

 tracted in Northern Europe, and which consist of 

 thousands of shells of the oyster, cockle, and other 

 edible mollusks, with implements of stone, such as 

 flint knives, hatchets, &c., and implements of bone, 

 wood, and horn, with fragments of coarse pottery 

 mixed with charcoal and cinders.f 



Quite recently, one of these kjokkenmoddings has 

 been discovered at Newhaven, in Sussex, and among 

 the objects found were limpet and other shells, with 

 bones of animals. J 



In 1863, Sir John Lubbock published, in the 

 ' Natural History Review/ an account he had received 

 from the Rev. G-. Gordon, of Scotch kjokkenmoddings 

 on the Elginshire coast, resembling those in Denmark. 

 Mr. Gordon says, "By far the most striking, if not 

 the most ancient, of the kjokkenmoddings we have in 

 our vicinity, is that one which lies within a small wood 

 on the old margin of the Loch of Spynie, and on a sort 

 of promontory formed of those raised shingle beaches 

 so well developed in that quarter. This mound, or 

 rather two mounds (for there is an intervening portion 

 of the ground which has no shells), must have been of 

 considerable extent. A rough measurement gives 

 eighty by thirty yards for the larger, and twenty-six 



* Darwin, 'Voyage of Adventure and Beagle/ vol. iii. p. 234. 

 f Sir Charles Ly ell's 'Antiquity of Man/ 

 < Intellectual Observer,* vol. vii. p. 233. 



