PREHISTOKIC FAUNA. 327 



the claims of which to be considered indigenous Mr. H. C. Watson 

 ('Cybele,' i. p. 243) allows, it may be added that Mr. Edwin Lees (cit. 

 Johns, 1. c. p. 260) informs us that there is in the neighbourhood of 

 Worcester a wood remote from any old dwelling or public road, of about 

 500 acres in extent, the greater part of which is qomposed of the small- 

 leaved lime. 



II. Of the Pkehistokic Fauna of Neolithic Times. 



But though the lime may have been available in these islands for 

 the use of the bee, and though both the laws (Wotton, ■ Leg. Wallicae,' 

 i. 22, p. 43) and the literature (Sharon Turner, 'Vindication of the 

 Ancient British Poems,' p. 59 j Stephens, ' Literature of the Kymry/ 

 2nd ed., 1876, p. 80) no less than the reputation (Holinshed, 'England/ 

 ed. 1807, i. 286) of the Welsh tell us that they made 'no less accompt ' 

 of metheglin or mead ' than the Greeks did of their ambrosia or nectar,' 

 I should for several reasons be slow to think that the bee was domes- 

 ticated in this country before the Roman era, or that the Celtic mead 

 was made of any but wild honey. If we consider however, firstly, that 

 even by the Romans themselves sugar was mainly procured from honey, 

 beet-root and maple-sugar being wholly unknown and cane-sugar having 

 been heard of only in some tradition from the expedition of Nearchus 

 ('Strabo/ xv. 1. 20) ; and, secondly, how largely now separated sugars 1 

 enter into the dietaries even of the poorest amongst us, we shall come to 

 see that this at first sight trifling matter would, if we could transport 

 ourselves back into the days even of Caractacus, constitute for us as con- 

 stantly felt a difference between ancient and modern life as would the 

 absence or extreme rarity of glass and coal. The only evidence which 

 I have met with which may seem to show that the British in pre- 

 Roman times obtained the honey which the authority I am about to 

 quote calls an ' excellent succedaneum ' for sugar, from hived bees 

 rather than nerprjs U yXacpvpqs of the Iliad (/3. 88), the ' stony rock ' of 



1 See address to the Physiological Subsection of the British Association by Edward 

 Smith, M.D., F.R.S. Report, Bath Meeting, 1864, p. no. « Separated sugars were 

 obtained by 98 per cent, of the farm labourers in England, 92 per cent, in Wales, 96 

 per cent, in Scotland, and 82 per cent, in Ireland ; and the quantity per adult weekly 

 was— England 7| ozs., Wales 7f ozs., Scotland 5f ozs., and Ireland 4I ozs. ; so that 

 Wales occupied the head, and Ireland the foot of the list, both in frequency and 

 quantity. Of in-door operatives, silk-weavers obtained 7| ozs., needle-women 7 J ozs., 

 kid-glovers 4^ ozs., shoemakers 10 ozs., and stocking-weavers n ozs.; and hence the 

 average was higher than that of out-door labourers, as 8 ozs. to 66 ozs. The frequency 

 with which they were obtained was the same in both classes on the whole average.' 



