406 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



nations), though by that name they acknowledge themselves 

 actually to belong to the Celtic family. They may be tha 

 Celtae which Alexander found on the Ister, according to 

 Arrian, and be the Triballi of Roman history. Further on w;> 

 observed that wandering tr be, the Boii, in the present Bavaria 

 the same which once occupied Bohemia, and left two colonie 

 in Gaul, whereof one, seated at the Teste de Buch, near thi 

 mouth of the Garonne, ha:l for hereditary Vergobret, rornan 

 ized into Captal de Buch, Jean de Grailly, the last of the 

 family, who was, in the reign of Edward III., the fifth Knight 

 of the Garter, at the foundation of the order. This very title 

 of Buch, their tribal name of Bougers, and their silent wood- 

 land manners, attest that they were not pure Celts, but, like 

 other fair-haired Boii of the north, Belgae or Semi-Germans.* 

 Besides the possession of Bohemia, Celtic tribes long held 

 Galicia in Spain ; others, from the Tauric Chersonesus, passed 

 up the rivers and swamps of Sarmatian Galicia and the 

 Baltic, where they came in contact with Illyrian or Finnic 

 Verieti. Passing over to Sweden and Norway, they built up 

 the usual monuments of their presence, and left some portion 

 of their dogmas to the first conquering Getae ; thence they 

 edged down by the Cymbric Chersonesus, along the west 

 coast of Germany, and began to force their way into Northern 

 Gaul, at least one century before the Roman conquest. They 

 dislodged the first Belgce, who, not finding space for habitation 

 on the Continent, formed the two well known irruptions into 

 Britain. They extended themselves along the southern coast, 

 reached the British Channel, and passed over to Ireland, 

 where they formed the Firbolg tribes, who, at a later period, 

 encountered the Finnic Celts in the northern portion of the 

 island. Taking the Irish Firbolg to be descended from the 



* In the letters of St. Paulinus, addressed to the poet Ausonius, there 

 are some details of the manners of these Boii. At present they are col- 

 lectors of rosin in the pine forests of that sandy region, and characteristi- 

 cally possess a breed of vigorous feral horses. 



