384 SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OF CONCHOLOGY. 



Polynesian savage at the present day. The like traces of the primitive 

 habits of the aboriginal allophylise of the northern parts of the British 

 mainland and the neighboring islands have been noted. On exploring, 

 one remarkable example of the subterranean stone dwellings of the 

 ancient population of the Orkneys, — opened by Lieutenant Thomas, 

 R. N., and a party of the Admiralty Survey Service in 1848, — the 

 remains of the charcoal and peat-ashes of the long-extinguished hearth 

 lay intermingled with bones of the horse, ox, deer, and whale ; and 

 also with some rude implements illustrative of primitive Orcadian 

 arts ; while a layer of shells of the oyster, escallop and periwinkle, 

 the common whelk, the purpura, and the limpet, covered the floor and 

 the adjacent ground, in some places half a foot deep. Of these, the 

 limpet, though common on the coast, formed only a very small pro- 

 portion of the whole ; while the periwinkle was the most abundant. 

 The relative accumulations of the other shells, — differing as they did 

 from the present ratio of the various mollusca on the neighboring 

 shores, — in like manner furnish some slight index of the culinary taste 

 of the aboriginal Briton in Ihose long-forgotten centuries. 



It is curious and instructive thus to note even so small a matter as 

 the tastes of the rude barbarian Briton of these long-forgotten cen- 

 turies, for they supply a means of comparison between the very diverse 

 races of the British Islands in remotely ancient and modern times. 

 The periwinkle is now annually shipped in large quantities from the 

 Scottish coasts to supply the markets of the British metropolis ; and 

 at the recent meeting of the British Association at Dublin, Mr. 

 Patterson read a paper before the zoological section, tending to show 

 that such is the demand for that favorite mollusk that it is in danger 

 of being extirpated on the Irish coasts. The quantity of Litorina, 

 littoral periwinkles, shipped at Belfast during the four previous years, 

 according to the returns of the Secretary to the Harbor Commissioners 

 of that port, amounted in 1853 to 1,034 bags, containing 181 tons; 

 in 1854 to 2,626 bags, or 459i tons ; and in 1855 to 2,286 bags, or 

 400 tons; while in 1856 it fell off to 786 bags, or 137 tons. The 

 diminished exports of the last year have not arisen from any decrease 

 in the demand. Such of the mollusca as are not procured for this 

 export trade in the Bay of Belfast are principally collected on the 

 coasts of the County of Down ; but the banks from which they were 

 formerly derived are no longer capable of supplying the market, and 

 the deficient quantity is at present brought from Stanraer to Belfast, 



