CHAP. II. OR "kitchen-middens." 15 



parts of the skeletons of birds in general, even of those of 

 large size. In reference to the latter, it has been pi'oved ex- 

 perimentally by Professor Steenstrup that, if the same species 

 of birds are now given to dogs, they will devour those parts 

 of the skeleton which are missing, and leave just those which 

 are preserved in the old "refuse-heaps." 



The dogs of the mounds, the only domesticated animals, 

 are of a smaller race than those of the bronze period, as 

 shown by the j)eat-mosses, and the dogs of the bronze age 

 are inferior in size and strength to those of the iron use. 

 The domestic ox, horse, and sheep, which are wanting in the 

 mounds, are confined to that part of the Danish peat which 

 grew in the ages of bronze and iron. 



Among the bones of birds, scarcely any are more frequent 

 in the mounds than those of the auk or penguin (Alca 

 im'pennis), now extinct in Europe, having but lately died 

 out in Iceland, but said still to survive in Greenland, where, 

 however, its numbers are fast diminishing. The Capercailzie 

 (^Tetrao Urogallus) is also met with, and may, it is suggested, 

 have fed on the buds of the Scotch fir in times when that 

 tree flourished around the peat-bogs. The different stages of 

 growth of the roe-deer's horns, and the presence of the wild 

 swan, now only a winter visitor, have been appealed to as 

 proving that the aborigines resided in the same settlements 

 all the year round. That they also ventured out to sea in 

 canoes such as are now found in the peat-mosses, hollowed 

 out of the trunk of a single tree, to catch fish far from land, 

 is testified by the bony relics of several deep-sea species, such 

 as the herring, cod, and flounder. The ancient people were 

 not cannibals, for no human bones are mingled with the spoils 

 of the chase. Skulls, however, have been obtained not only 

 from peat, but from tumuli of the stone period believed to be 

 contemporaneous with the mounds. These skulls are small 

 and round, and have a prominent ridge over the orbits of 



