( 33 ) 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



HOMINIDvE. 



Early Man in Britain. — At Brandon, a village and parish on the bor- 

 ders of Suffolk and Norfolk, there have been recently found, in a field within 

 eighty yards from the Little Ouse or Brandon river, no fewer than sixty-three 

 skulls, which have been examined and described by Mr. Charles S. Myers, 

 B.A., in the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute.' Mr. Myers is 

 inclined to " assign these remains to a people that lived antecedent to the 

 Saxon invasion. Indeed, there is but one skull in this series that presents 

 in any degree the physical characters of Saxon crania." This prompts the 

 further conclusion that, " if the Brandon skulls date^ as there is every 

 reason to believe, from an age prior to the Saxon invasion, the presence of 

 a Saxon in England at this date demonstrates that the Saxon invasion took 

 place more gradually than history would have us conceive, or that Saxons 

 were included in the auxiliary forces introduced by the Romans. Doubt- 

 less both these alternatives are true. Even in pre-Roman times the Iceni 

 were a mixed people. Thus the Roman institution of the Comes Litoris 

 Saxonica becomes fraught with a new meaning. On some such hypotheses 

 the early Brandon folk may well have received a sprinkling of Saxon 

 settlers along the Icknield Way from the eastern ports." — Ed. 



carnivora. 



Dogs of Draught in Belgium. — No visitor to Brussels can fail to be 

 struck with the number of Dogs which are to be seen about the streets 

 employed in drawing small carts and barrows. It has been recently esti- 

 mated that in the capital alone more than 10,000 Dogs are thus employed, 

 and the number of draught Dogs throughout the country is probably not 

 less than 50,000. Generations of servitude have thus made the Belgian 

 Dog a race sui generis. For his size he is said to possess the greatest 

 pulling power of any animal, four times his own weight being considered a 

 load well within his powers. Takiug his average weight as 56 lbs., or half 

 a hundredweight, this means that something like 5000 tons are daily 

 dragged about by Dogs in Belgium. The economic importance of the 

 Belgian Dog, and his inability to give expression to his own grievances, 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. I., Jan. 1897. v 



