EIKNOIOGY A2TD AECHJ^OLOGY. 191 



carboD, or manganese, or nickel, which, by their presence, would sbow it to be 

 meteoric. This subject is interesting to the archaeologist, as well as to the mineral- 

 ogist, as furnishing another example of the working of metal — like the cold 

 wrought copper of the ancient miners of Lake Superior— without smelting, or other 

 than mechanical means. 



VALUE OF NATURAL HISTORY TO THE ARCHAEOLOGIST. 



In Indian grave mounds, and on sites of long-deserted Indian villages, numerous 

 bones of wild animals are found, calculated to throw an interesting light on the old 

 fauna of the clearings of this Continent. The following resume of observations on 

 this archaeological department of Natural History in relation to England, 

 abstracted from a communication by Mr. Joseph Clarke to the Historic Society of 

 Lancashire and Cheshire, may suffice to shew of what essential service a know- 

 ledge of Xatural History may prove to the Archaeologist: — 



Skeletons, in Saxon barrows, are sometimes surrounded with a row of flints, and 

 next to them a ro >v of small bones, and in one instance the body had been complete- 

 ly covered over with small bones, which were ascertained to be those of the water 

 rat (Arvicola amphibia. Desm.), a species confined to banks of rivers and ponds, 

 injuring the trees by gnawing off the bark for their store, and not visiting the 

 habitations of man. The old English black rat {Muz rattus, Linn.) was not then 

 known, having centuries since, been introduced from India. And that pest, now 

 so common, the brown or Xorway rat {Mus decumanus, Pall), which has extermi- 

 nated the other race, being a native of Persia, had not inflicted a visitation on this 

 kingdom previous to 1730. It seems to be a law in nature that the weaker should 

 disappear before the stronger ; thus, our partridge {Perdix cinerea, Briss.) disap- 

 pears before the red legged or French partridge {Perdix rubra, Briss.) wherever 

 it is allowed to exist. And even man is not exempt : the Red Indian blotted out 

 from existence the Aztec of America, to be in his turn extirpated from the earth 

 by the intruding Anglo-Saxon. Immense numbers of the shells of one of the 

 pests of our gardens — the common snail, {Helix aspersa, Mull.) have been 

 found in some of the graves above-mentioned. Quantities of a species of Merita 

 have also been found in similar graves. Douglass figures shells of the genus 

 Cyprice in conjunction with burial places, and Mr. C. Roach Smith says, specimens 

 of the genus Merita and Buccinum, drilled as beads for necklaces, were discovered 

 with remains at Settle, in Yorkshire ; and at Sandwich, a gold coin and cowry-shel 

 were found in an urn. The brown bear ( Ursus arctos, Linn.) is one of our ancient 

 indigenous animals, and infected some portions of this kingdom, almost as late as 

 the sixteenth century. The beaver {Castor Fiber, Linn.) was noticed in Wales, by 

 Giraldus de Barri, in 1138, and is known to have existed in great abundance at an 

 early period on the banks of the river Hull, in Yorkshire, where the memory of its 

 denizenship is still retained in the name of the town of Beverly — and Cambridge- 

 shire has produced a skull of it in a fossil state. The wolf (C'anis Lupvs, Linn.) 

 now happily exterminated continued to prowl about our homestead and sheepfolda 

 almost to the eighteenth century. The wild boar (Sus scrofa, Linn.) ranged the 

 forests about London in the reign of Henry II. and its tusks are rather abundant 

 in or near most Roman encampments. One found at Richborough had an ornamen- 

 tal piece of brass attached to it, and had probably been worn as atrophy or remem- 

 brance of some animal of extraordinary endurance in the chase, or ferocity in fight. 

 Some legs of cocks {Gallus domesticut, Briss.) were found at Bartlow, which might 

 Lave been preserved from the latter motive. The bones of the red deer {Cervus 



