PKEHISTOKIC FAUNA. 331 



Saxon word "beo-cist" (bee-chest) and the Latin "alvearia" (bee-hives) 

 usually substituted for " rusca," from which it may be inferred that these 

 rough constructions were superseded by regular hives/ 



Helm (< Cultur-Pflanzen und Hausthiere/ p. 425 ed. i, p. 505 ed. ii), 

 referring to an ' erschbpfend ' article by Pott in Kuhn and Schleicher's 

 'Beitrage/ ii. 265, in which the Slavonic word for hive is stated to be 

 ulei and the Lithuanian awilys (as according to Grimm (18 19) the 

 Bohemian word is aul and the Polish ul), suggests that these words may 

 be loan words modelled from the Latin alveus, and mediaeval Latin 

 apile. The Welsh scholars in Oxford, the late Principal of Jesus 

 College and Professor Rhys, inform me that the common Welsh word 

 for bee-hive is cwch-gwenyn, literally boat of bees, and that these are not 

 loan words. If the words are not borrowed words, the idea which they 

 express is borrowed, and shows that the employers of the metaphor used 

 boats before hives. If the boats to which they compared the beehives 

 were the North Welsh coracles with ' subspheroidal ' rather than so- 

 called 'scaphoid* outlines, this may further indicate that the earliest 

 form of beehive with which the Welsh were acquainted was one which 

 was late to be attained to in the development of the invention \ If we 

 are right in holding, on the authority of Logan, 1. c, that the Cornish 

 word for hive is kauelh, which in Welsh means a large basket, this 

 would go some way to show that the Cornish were not acquainted with, 

 or at least did not adopt the hive until it had been developed beyond 

 the stage of ■ rusca/ ' corticibus suta cavatis/ into that of the ■ lento 

 alvearia vimine texta' of Virgil. I have, finally, the authority of 

 Professor Rhys for the possibility of the Welsh word for wax, viz. cwyr, 

 being a loan word from the Latin. 



I searched, as I had expected, in vain, for any figure of a hive in Mr. 

 Evans's 2 'Coins of the Ancient Britons/ 1864. 



1 I learn from Professor Westwood that according to Spinola our domestic species 

 Apis mellifica rarely occurs in Liguria ; and he suggests that this shows either that 

 the Ligures were not the colonisers of Wales, as has been affirmed, or that they did 

 not bring their bee, Apis ligustica, with them. 



a In answer to an enquiry of mine as to the existence of a figure of a Live on any 

 ancient coin whatever, Mr. Evans informs me that he does not know of any such coin 

 which has certainly a hive upon it. The figures upon two coins of Dyrrachium given 

 by Beger ('Thesaur. Brandenberg. Select.' vol. i. p. 459) and b y Goltz (ed. Nonnius, 

 1620, pi. i. fig. 7, p. 4) amongst the coins of Greece, the Islands, and Asia Minor, 

 though described locc. citt. as 'apiaria' and 'alvearia/ Mr. Evans thinks may be 

 merely the caps of the Dioscuri. And to me these figures, as given in the latter of 

 the books referred to, appear with their pendent strings to suggest the 'mitrae' with 

 'redimicula' of the ^neid, ix. 616, rather than the 'alvearia' of the Georgios. 



Professor Westwood has furnished me with certain references from hagiological 



