184 CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



I am not aware that the Pagan priests of Britain held the crocodile in 

 religious veneration, but the sacrifice of animals was performed upon 

 their cromlechs or altars, which, says Borlase, sometimes were single 

 stones erect. If Druidism acknowledged the crocodile a necessary 

 appendage to its pretended incantations, and if the sheep or goat held 

 a place in the catalogue of its animal sacrifices, the curious appearances 

 on the Dancing Witches' Rock will admit of explanation. 



I am not acquainted with the geological constitution of this rock, 

 but its exterior appearance is that of a close-grained granite. Assum- 

 ing that the granite is of the most prevalent compound, namely, 

 quartz, felspar, and mica ; assuming that an animal of anatomical 

 structure resembling that of the crocodile, had been deprived of life 

 on the rock, and had thereon lain till its bones came in contact with 

 the surface of the rock j I presume it is not probable, under those 

 circumstances, that natural chemical agency, acting either on the rock 

 or bone, would stamp the impression of the bone upon the rock. If 

 the bone had a considerable time rested in contact with a chalk rock, 

 it is assumed that chemical agency reposing in the bone, and influenced 

 by certain states of the atmosphere, would be roused into action, caus- 

 ing the rock to take the figure of the bone. Doubtless there are 

 changes continually going forward in the great laboratories of nature 

 — changes forming compounds of every kind, developing their ele- 

 ments as if by mere accident, and showing their existence by the spon- 

 taneous activity of their operations. 



From the foregoing observations I think it may be said, that the 

 cause of the characters on the Dancing Witches' Rock is to be attributed, 

 in absence of better proof, to Druidic superstition ; the reasoning ap- 

 plied to chemical transformation is liable to more difficulties, and is 

 influenced by circumstances not so immediately under the control of 

 probability. — R. T. C, Shouldham, 1st Feb., 1833. 



Swallows. — I think I have somewhere read that swallows do not 

 stop to rest during their migrations until they have reached their des- 

 tined port, unless they are overtaken by stress of weather, in which 

 case they have been known to alight upon the masts and rigging of 

 ships at sea; but the following circumstance which came under my ob- 

 servation, gives me reason to suppose that, when they pass over land, 

 they rest from their fatigues. Last March, when I was residing near 

 Lee, I was loitering one evening in a field, in hopes of finding the nest 

 of a blackbird frequenting a hedge on one side of the little stream 



