326 APPENDIX. 



indeed the yew, Taxus baccata, and the juniper, Juniperus communis, the 

 only other representatives of the entire natural order Coniferae l . 



In a round barrow at Kepwick examined by Canon Greenwell (see 

 ' British Barrows,' p. 337) and myself the grave was found lined with the 

 bark and branches of the birch ; much as the Lapp graves, described in 

 the ' Compte Rendu ' of the Stockholm International Congress of An- 

 thropology, 1876, torn. i. p. 181, or Mestorfs Report of it, 1874, 

 p.. 1 3, contained bodies entirely covered with several layers of birch bark 

 sewed round them to protect them as much as possible. It is interesting 

 to add that in these tombs, constructed of stones, and with much pains, 

 ' on y a retrouve . . . des pointes de fleche et des cuillers en bois de renne 

 ainsi que des fragments de poterie . . / and that 'quelques-uns des tom- 

 beaux renfermaient une ou deux pieces de bronze et de fer/ 



Herr Victor Hehn has in two passages, I.e. pp. n and 425, laid so 

 much weight upon the importance of the lime or linden tree (the ' lyndes 

 faire ' of Chaucer, Tilia europaea, grandifolia, and parvifolia of botanists) 

 to man in early stages of culture, at once for the manufacture of matting, 

 an invention of older date than weaving, and for the supply of honey to 

 bees, to say nothing of its other uses, that in view of the indigenous 

 character of the tree being disputed it becomes of importance to note 

 that De Candolle (1. c. p. 658), with the arguments of Messrs. Leighton 

 and Bromfield and with the philological evidence furnished by Davies 

 (' Welsh Botany/ p. 53) before him, inclines to the affirmative side of 

 the question. As regards the small-leaved lime-tree, Tilia parvifolia, 



1 The Scotch fir, P. sylvestris, must have met Caesar's eyes in great abundance in 

 the parts of Britain which he traversed. Still he, not being a botanist, may have 

 failed to recognise it as an abies; and it may, in the other countries in which he 

 might have seen it, have been, then as now, overgrown and obscured by its natural 

 allies. Or indeed it may have been represented in those regions at that time only by 

 that dwarf marsh-haunting variety which, following zoological analogies, I would 

 call P. sylvestris, var. palustris. The Swiss spruce, P. abies, on the other hand, 

 which as much excels our English spruce in size and beauty as our Scotch fir excels 

 the Swiss, may very easily have been confounded with the silver fir, P. picea, by 

 Caesar, as when old it comes to resemble it both in general facies and in the colour 

 of its bark. I have thought that the spruce may, like our common elm, have 

 attained its present numerical preponderance in recent times and owing to man's 

 help and its superior serviceability. And Dr. Uhlmann tells me it is less abundantly 

 represented in the stone-period lake-dwelling of Miinchenbuchsee than the silver fir. 

 Dr. H. Christ, on the other hand, says the reverse is the case in the station of Roben- 

 hausen, which, according to Riitimeyer, ' Fauna der Pfahlbauten,' p. 161, bears other 

 evidence of belonging to a later ' Kulturzustand.' For the geographical distribution 

 of the Abietineae, see De Candolle, 1. c, pp. 158, 190, 192 ; Fischer, 'Flora von Bern,' 

 1863, pp. 227, 228 ; Heer in Keller, ed. Lee, p. 349 ; Dr. Christ in Riitimeyer, 1. c, 

 pp. 228, 229. 



