PATELLID^. —LIMPET. 
12i 
given, either with the hammer or stone, and the fish fell 
at once.^^ This reminds ns of Hermippiis, who says, — 
“ And beating down the limpets from the rocks, 
They make a noise like castanets.”* 
The Patellida were also among the shellfish eaten by 
the ancients ; Diphilus says they have a pleasant flavour, 
are easily digested, and when boiled are particularly 
nice.t It is a curious fact, and one which is puzzling to 
archseologists, that limpet shells should be found in such 
abundance in cromlechs, both in the Channel Islands 
and in Brittany, surrounding the remains of the dead, 
often covering the bones, skulls, etc., to the depth of two 
and three feet in thickness. Mr. F. C. Lukis, in the 
^Journal of the Archaeological Association^ (vol. i. p. 28), 
mentions finding limpet shells, mixed with earth, round 
tlie bones, in the Cromlech du Tus, or de Hus, Guern- 
sey. Again, in a “ cromlech in Jersey, discovered in 
April, 1848, Mr. Lukis adds that there is a difficulty 
in solving the great question — why such a mass of lim- 
pet shells should invariably accompany these abodes of 
the dead ? They are found not only in the earliest de- 
posits, but also amongst the more recent. J 
The term Cromlech, as applied to the Cromlech 
du Tus” is a local name, used in the Channel Islands 
for a subterranean chamber, lined with upright slabs, 
covered by a roof of one or more slabs of stone, with a 
long passage leading to it, formed in like manner of up- 
right slabs covered by large lintels,— -over which has 
been raised a tumulus of earth ; while our term Crom- 
lech is applied to those covered by one capstone only, 
* Atbenseus, Deipn., book xiy. 39. 
t Atbenseus, vol. i. book iii. p. 152. 
J Journal of the Archeological Association, vol. iv. p. 336. 
