386 SOME ETHNOGRAPHIC PHASES OF CONCHOLOGY. 



At a period which may be assumed as greatly more modern than 

 the era of those singular subterranean dwellings of primitive centuries, 

 we once more meet with extensive accumulations of oyster shells, 

 with those of the cockle and muscle, among the miscellaneous 

 remains on Romano -British sites of the first centuries of the Chris- 

 tian era, alongside of bones and tusks of the British boar, and of 

 other extinct animals, deer and oxen, the latter the bos longifrons, 

 which appears to have been the domesticated ox of early Celtic times. 

 But such Roman deposits of the shells of British mollusca are no 

 longer confined to coast stations ; as indeed might be anticipated when 

 it is remembered that the voluptuous Roman esteemed the oysters of 

 the British seas so great a delicacy, in comparison with those of his 

 own mediterranean shores, as to transport them to Italy to add a new 

 zest to his luxurious board. Pliny records the high estimation in 

 which the British oyster was held at Rome, and Juvenal has satirized 

 the excessive refinement of the epicurean taste which could discrimi- 

 nate between the oyster of the Kentish coast, and those of Circsean 

 sands or rocky Leucrine shores : — 



" Circasis nata forent, an 



Lucrinum ad saxum, Eutupinove edita fundo, 



Ostrea, callebat primo deprendere morsu ; 



Et semel adspecti littus dicebat echini." — Sat. IV., 1. 140. 



It may also be noted that the shell of the common snail is found in 

 such quantities on Roman sites, and occasionally also in Anglo-Saxon 

 graves, as to lead to the belief that it constituted another choice deli- 

 cacy at the tables of those successive colonists of celtic Britain. 



Considerable interest has been excited among Danish antiquaries, in 

 recent years, by the explorations of large accumulations of the shells 

 of mollusca, met with at various points on the coasts of Denmark. 

 These, which were at first regarded merely as natural, deposits, the 

 remains of the abundant fauna of the neighbouring seas, have proved 

 on examination to come within the province of the archseologist, and 

 special steps have been taken to secure their thorough investigation. 

 Within them have accordingly been found implements of bone, 

 pottery, hatchets formed of stags' horns, &;c., aod in one examined by 

 the distinguished Danish antiquary, Mr. Worsaae, chiefly consisting 

 of oyster-shells, he found numerous skulls and bones of animals, flint 

 celts and arrow-heads, bones broken, as has been supposed, for the 

 purpose of extracting the marrow, charcoal, and other traces of the 

 early occupants of the Danish coasts. 



