252 
LIFE OF DEAN BUCKLAND . 
[CH. IX. 
book in hand ; but on no occasion was he a more assi¬ 
duous attendant than when his friend Professor Owen gave 
his admirable demonstrations on Comparative Anatomy/ 
“ Dr. Buckland also applied his knowledge of human 
anatomy to questions interesting to the antiquarian. He 
was present at the opening of some Saxon barrows on 
Breachdown, near Canterbury, when he found ‘ the thick 
skull, apparently, of a peasant warrior bearing marks of 
a fracture received during life/ He also describes the 
flattened and polished surfaces of the warrior’s molar teeth, 
indicating that he had eaten hard food—probably parched 
peas and beans. This fact he had frequently observed in 
the teeth from the graves of ancient Britons, and also in 
the teeth of modern uncivilised races of men. On another 
occasion Dr. Buckland described the claw of an eagle and 
the bones of other birds found by himself in the ruins of 
a Roman villa near Weymouth, and conjectures that they 
were sacred birds connected with augury, or votive sacri¬ 
fices to Esculapius ; of which we have an example in the 
cock which Socrates in his dying moments commanded to 
be sacrificed to that deity.” 1 
The spiritual welfare of Westminster was not neglected 
by the Dean. Partly through his exertions two additional 
churches were built, and, after he was himself incapacitated 
by his illness, Mrs. Buckland carried on his various plans 
for the alleviation of the condition of the poor. One of 
the new churches, dedicated to St. Matthew, was erected on 
a site, and included a district, known as the “ Devil’s acre.” 
In Pye Street in this parish Mrs. Buckland set on foot a 
coffee house, to which Her Majesty the Queen subscribed 
^50, and in which many of the nobility and eminent men 
of the day were interested. The Rev. R. Malone, the 
first incumbent of St. Matthew’s, writes :— 
1 F. Buckland, Memoir to Bridgewater, 4th ed. 
