74 
Notes and Comments. 
should be clearly proved to be artefacts. This, in his opinion, 
has not been proved in the case of the Ipswich finds, on which 
Mr. J. R. Moir and Sir E. Ray Lankester based their con- 
clusion that man was living in Suffolk in the Pliocene Age. 
The supposed artefacts are probably caused by the pressure 
of the dead weight of gravel on the move down the slopes, or 
by other pressure, such as that of ice. On the question of the 
age of the deposits in which they are found, the archaeologists 
must refer to Geology as a final Court of Appeal. They have 
no right to invent glacial periods, or to correlate strata in 
Britain with the glaciers in the Alps.’ The final speaker 
wished to urge caution upon Suffolk archaeologists, anil 
‘ pleaded that they should carefully study the elementary 
geology of their district before indulging in the misstatements 
which had been frequent in recently r published archaeological 
papers, and were in danger of bringing the science into 
disrepute.’ 
RINGING BIRDS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
The practice of placing rings on birds’ legs is by no means 
a new one, though the silver rings referred to below were not 
used with any scientific object. At the sale of the collection 
of Roman coins, etc., formed by the late Thomas Smith (usually 
known as ‘ Coin Tommy’), of South Ferriby, Lines., was a pair 
of small flat silver rings, one of which was inscribed Henry 
Viscount on one side and Dumber on the other. On the second 
ring were the words In Holderness on one side and of York 
shire on the other. There was some competition for these silver 
rings, and eventually they came into the possession of a well- 
known London dealer. They were subsequently figured in 
Spink’s Numismatic Circular as ‘ Engraved tokens in the form 
of rings.’ The rings, however, appeared to be similar to those 
used in the seventeenth century for fastening to the leg~ of 
hawks used in falconery. Other examples of a similar kind are 
known and one or two have been figured in the early volumes of 
' Arclueologia.’ The rings were found on the beach at South 
Ferriby and are doubtless all that remains of a falcon which 
had died there or been washed up on the beach many years 
ago. The Rev. C. Y. Collier informs me that Henry Constable 
Viscount Dunbar, was a Yorkshireman by birth, though holding 
a Scotch peerage. He was one of the Constables of Burton 
and Halsham in the East Riding ; and he was created Baron 
Naturalist, 
