Recent Wiltshire Boohi, Fanipldets, Articles, &c. 181 



everybody and makes a mental note of their ethnological affinities 

 whilst he does so. The greater the variety in the nationality of his 

 friends the better he is pleased. He goes on a tour in Italy with two 

 Swedes, a Finlander, and a Eurasian. Whilst studying in the medical 

 schools at Vienna he tells us that he was personally acquainted with 

 " men who belonged to at least sixteen different European nations, not 

 including Germans of various districts, besides Americans and Asiatics." 

 His friends throughout life have been many of them distinguished 

 Anthropologists like himself, and the interest of the present volume 

 largely consists in anecdotes bearing directly or indirectly on this 

 favourite life-study of the author's. 



otes on Wiltshire Names. By John C. Longstaff. 

 Vol. I. Place Names. Bradford-on-Avon. Wm. 

 Dotesio, The Library Press, 1911. 



8vo cloth, pp. viii. + 166. Price 3/6 net, post free 3/9. 

 " These notes on Wiltshire Names," says the author in the preface, 

 " set forth no new discoveries, they merely bring together in one volume 

 information which hitherto has had to be sought in the works of a 

 dozen different writers. Hence the volume is little more than a com- 

 pilation, not written for scholars, who, it may be assumed, already 

 possess the information contained herein .... This book, then, 

 has been prepared for the ordinary reader — the man in the street, the 

 youth of studious disposition, the senior schoolboy — who may desire to 

 I know the origin and meaning of his own name and of the names of his 

 I fellows, as well as the history of the town and village names that meet 

 I his eye as he looks at the map of Wilts." " They are now issued with 

 much diffidence, in the hope that the reader, while not perhaps agreeing 

 with all the conclusions arrived at, will find the subject as interesting 

 and instructive as it has proved to the writer." 



The author disarms criticism by this very modest pronouncement of 

 the purpose of the book, but he has no need to do so. His work can 

 very well stand on its own bottom. It is true that many of the deriv- 

 ations given are probably open to considerable dispute, but has any 

 work yet been written dealing with such matters of which the same 

 cannot be said ? There is a most welcome absence of dogmatism about 

 most of the statements here made. In many cases alternative deriv- 

 ations are given and the reader is allowed to make his choice between 

 them, though in most cases the writer very rightly states his own 

 preference. He gives in the preface a list of the authorities he has 

 considted. There is a really excellent introductory chapter on '' the 

 Keltic, I'voman, Saxon, Scandinavian, and Danish elements" in 

 Wiltshire, in wliich nnuli sound sense is compressed into a short space. 

 Indeed, taken as a whole, the book is di.^tin.i^nished l»y it> eoniinon 

 sense, a (lisiiuction liy no niean> always shareil l'\- writns on h)eal 

 Etymologies. The headings of the chapters show the scope of the 

 1 work. " Names deii\eil from enclosures :— Ton ; Hams, Burys, Worths, 

 Wicks; Nain<'> (haiNcd trom open .spaces, Leighs. Fields, Woods, 



