THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY 6. NATURALIST. 



69 



WEATHER REPORT FOR THE WEEK. 

 From the meteorological register made at the Ordnance 

 Survey Office, Southampton, under the direction of Col. Sir 

 Chas. Wilson. K.C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R S., R.E. Lat. 50 

 54' 50" N. ; long. i 24' o" W. ; height above sea, 84 leet. 

 Observers-Sergt. T. Chambers, R.E., and Mr. J.T. Cook. 



*Black bulb in vacuo. 



THE HAMPSHIRE INDEPENDENT, April 19, 1890. 



THE CUCKOO AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 



Mr. J. W. Batchelor, of Cheriton, writes : On 

 Wednesday last the cuckoo and the nightingale were 

 heard in Cheriton Wood, and on the same day a 

 pair of swallows were observed skimming over the 

 streams in the water meadows here. Apropos of the 

 swallows, I may add, the query, do they revisit the 

 locality of their nest of the past season? has been 

 asked. In confirmation of the answer that they do, I 

 relate the following particulars. A few years ago a 

 farm labourer, living near Hartley Westpall, hung 

 his hand-saw on a nail in the wall of his cottage, 

 against which a lean-to woodhouse stood. 

 It was bruited about that a swallows' 

 nest was built on the top of the saw handle. The 

 report caused me to visit the place, and to my great 

 surprise I found the rumour to be correct. I took the 

 saw down from the nail, looked at the eggs, saw that 

 the nest, by use of some adhesive material, was firmly 

 fixed on the wood, replaced the whole on the nail, 

 made my exit, and witnessed the ingress of the birds 

 through a hole in the door (they would not go in 

 while the door was open). I was further gratified by 

 learning that the cottager* had forbidden all of his 

 family to molest the birds in any way. In the 

 succeeding season I went again and ascertained that 

 a second nest had been built on the handle, its owner 



having, in compliance with my request, kindly re- 

 hung the saw on the identical nail. Did not these 

 incidents indicate the possession of reason, or some 

 higher attribute than instinct ? 



Mr. Reginald Hooley, of Fir Grove, St. Denys, 

 Southampton, writes to the Southern Echo that the 

 nightingale was heard there on Wednesday night. 



GREEK TRADE-ROUTES TO BRITAIN. 

 In the first number (for March) of Folk Lore : a 

 Quarterly Journal of Myth, Tradition, Institution and 

 Custom (London : David Nutt) there is an article of 

 much interest to archaeologists on " Greek Trade- 

 Routes to Britain," by Prof. William Ridgeway. In 

 the course of this the author carefully analyses the 

 references to our island in the early Greek and Roman 

 writers, and draws from them some very important 

 conclusions as to the direction of the early routes. 

 This is surrounded with some little difficulty on 

 account of the vagueness of the old descriptions. But 

 Prof. Ridgeway is able to differentiate the routes of 

 the old Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the Greeks 

 and the Romans, and shows thereby a gradual east- 

 ward movement. For, first the Phoenicians voyaged 

 to the Cassiterides direct, though whether 

 these Cassiterides were the Scilly Islands or 

 islands lying off the coast of Spain is 

 still a moot question. Then the Phocean 

 colony at Massalia (Marseilles) seems to have 

 opened up a route up the Loire, across Armorica to 

 the Isle of Wight. This brings us to the question of 

 the identity of the Isle of Wight (the Victis of the 

 Romans) with the Ictis of Diodorus Siculus and the 

 Mictis of Timseus or Pliny. That it is so seems al- 

 most incontrovertible, the evidence is so strong ; and 

 any difficulty in reconciling it is far less in the case of 

 the Isle of Wight than in those of St. Michael's 

 Mount or Thanet. The Isle of Wight route is in- 

 geniously supported by the discoveries of coins found 

 along the lines of the two main routes described by 

 Strabo, by the Seine and by the Loire or Garonne. 

 Coins of the type of those of Massalia, dating back to 

 about 450 B.C., have been found among the various 

 nations of the west of France from Toulouse to 

 Armorica; " they are likewise found in the Channel 

 Islands, and in the south and west of England, as at 

 Portsmouth, at Mount Batten, near Plymouth, and in 

 Devonshire." On the eastern route extending 

 from Auvergne through central France to Kent 

 the coins are of the latter type of the gold 

 stater of Philip of Macedon, which dates only from 

 about 250 B.C. From this it is evident that the 

 earlier route was from the Isle of Wight to Armorica; 

 The more eastern route appears to have been 

 developed by the Belgae, who obtained predominance 

 in the south-east of England before the time of Julius 

 Caesar. Then we come to the omission of tin by 

 Strabo, in his account of British trade ; as to this 

 Prof. Ridgeway argues that " when the Romans in 



