Recent Wilts] tire Bouks, Paiivplilets, Artieles, &c. 193 



days of old. The words, as in many x^rimitive languages, run in 

 groups of five, four of which have some sound in common and the fifth 

 being different, caused by counting on the four fingers and thumb. 

 Do any of our readers know of these ancient numerals as still in use 

 by slie]:)herds in Wilts ? Yan (1), tan (2), tHhera (3), 2>ethera (4), pm^p 

 (5), &c. 



The manufacture of riveted iron sheep bells at Market Lavington 

 is described ; and the bell-founder family of Wells is referred to. 

 Their factory was not in Somerset as stated, but at Aldbourne, in 

 North Wilts. The suggestion that "K.VV." often found on cast 

 globular pack-horse bells refers to one Richard White, a founder at 

 Reading in 1520, rather than to Wells, of Aldbourne, does not commend 

 itself. Chambers' Book of Days is laid under contribution for the 

 interesting account of how the indefatigable and musical minister of 

 Bishops Cannings, in Aubrey's time, entertained King James I. at the 

 Bush in Cotefield with bucolics of his own making sung in four parts 

 by well trained parishioners, wearing frocks and whips like carters. 

 And how, when the Queen returned from Bath, the minister and his 

 flock received her at " Sheppei'd Shord " with a pastoral performed in 

 shepherds' weeds. That formerly popular sport, backswording, comes 

 in for a well-written notice by Miss Salmon. There is an article on 

 the various breeds of sheep in which, however, the now extinct old 

 Wiltshire sheep of great size with big horns is not mentioned. 



The Filling in of the Eastern Ditch at Oliver's 



Camp, near Devizes." An article in The Antiquary, June, 

 1911, pp. 219-221, by Albany F. Major (Sec. to the Earthworks Com- 

 mittee). The writer deals with the difficulty presented by the filling in 

 of the deep eastern ditch of the camp {see Wilts Arch. Mag., xxxiv., 

 408) which has apparently been done on purpose, above the 5ft. of 

 chalky rubble silt found at the bottom of the 13ft, which now represents 

 the depth of the filling. The writer rejects the suggestions put forward 

 by Mrs. Cunnington that the ditch may have been purposely filled 

 up, either after the capture of the camp by the Romans for the purpose 

 of " slighting " the stronghold, or at some subsec^uent period, because a 

 deep ditch may have been dangerous to cattle. He argues that in 

 neither of these cases would the material to fill the ditch have been, as 

 it apparently has been, brought from a distance, but that the bank 

 would naturally and obviously have been thrown into it, as indeed 

 Mrs. Cunnington lierself suggests. " All the peculiar features of the 

 case would be accounted for, if we suppose that the camp had at some 

 ])eriod during Roman or IJomano-lh-itish times been the object of 

 military oi)erations in the course of which the eastern ditch was filled 

 in to facilitate assault on the vulnerable side of the cam]). In such a 

 case it would have been necessary to bring the materials from a distance 

 so that the work could be done suddenly and without warning to the 

 defenders. Suili iiiattiials would naturally have been obtained from 

 waste griiund and iuMii>li heaps in the iiriudil»ourliood oi the position 

 occui)ied 1>\ the attackiuLr forcr. Tlii^ wituKl exjilain the presence of 

 VOL. XXXVII. — No. (XV. O 



