Cause of Babbits^ SsC. Eatmg their Toting, 
441 
Head lands which take the above ad¬ 
juncts are generally on the ocean or on 
large streams. Bibracte by Richard 
was twenty miles frong^ondinum; and 
from name must have been a remarkable 
point or nose on some vvater or stream. 
We have innumerable instances to show 
that the principal features of nature gave 
names to places; and that the hill or 
head land in question, New W'indsory 
gave name to the station of Bibracte, we 
may prove: 
1. From its having before the conquest 
Jhr a time unlimited been a caslle, and the 
tnost commariding place in these parts. 
2 . From its form in so ven/ singular a 
manner, agreeing with the word Bibractej 
or the Water Head Land. 
3. From its perhaps exact situation as 
laid down in Richard's Itinerary of twenty 
miles from Londinum, and of the same 
from Caleva. 
4. From no other hill or land, whicli 
would af)propi iately take this nanie, lying 
in the neighbourhood of the river on am/ 
side; but f)articularly none on the side 
which the Fibroci inhabited, at such equal 
distances from these stations. 
5. From its lying in the vicinity of a 
noted old and much-frequented pass, 
ac,d in a direct line from Londinum to 
Caleva. 
6 . From having old camps on Houn- 
slow-lieath, and at Waltham, on the bor¬ 
der of this line. 
And, finally, from its being the onl^ 
place with known remains at the Itinerary 
distance of about tvventy miles from Lon- 
dinuin and Caleva, in any road what¬ 
soever. 
Having then’ examined the name and 
situation of Bibracte, let me now see 
xvhat its oldest Saxon name Windlesora, 
or ll indelsora means, and how this name 
applies to Biliracte, or Nevv Windsor, 
'liie word Bum, or Finn, may, as before 
mentioned, (and as it is in various in¬ 
stances) be varied to Vin and Win, and 
mean peake, or clifFe. The postfix el 
seems to be a diminutive; but the hill at 
indsor certainly gave name to the ma¬ 
nor ot Clit/ore, in which it lies, and in 
xvhich name no diminutive is used. If it 
gave name also to Windsor I can scarcely 
believe that it could be denominated the 
little head or clifFe. It is perhaps too 
bold, high, and overhanging, a piece of 
land to be thus denoted ; we may there¬ 
fore suppose that A/, high, was here va¬ 
ried to elf as is the case in other in¬ 
stances. The root Sof \s Av, water, 
varied .aad .0/) as \itOf*pring^ in 
Kent.* Sav or Sev, in tlie Savern, now 
the Severn, ,means stream; and Sof is 
only a variation of Sav to Sov, and Sof. 
The syllable lla is often written in th© 
end of a word for Ar, and means border. 
Windlesofra, the high clitfe water border, 
or the water border high cliffe, then 
means the hill itself, and not Old Wind¬ 
sor. Old Windsor therefore is not, as 
authors imagine, the place which gave 
name to the settlement, notwithstanding 
our old and new respecting buildings now 
convey such ideas. Of old and new w« 
liave another remarkable instance in this 
Journey of Old and New Salisbury. 
Old Salisbury lay on a little round 
hill; its name implies, from Sal, an hill. 
Is, a diminutive, and Burp, a camp, the 
Little Hill Camp. The see and town 
were removed, and they gave it the name 
of New Salisbury, or the Little Hill 
Camp: but, unfortunately for the name, 
and for the wisdom of the people who 
gave it, the new little hill camp is a bot¬ 
tom which never contained anp zcorks of 
defence. 
Tew Iters require so many comments 
and corrections as these now concluded "j; 
and in this age of critical enquiry it is 
strange that so many new stations and 
disputes on old ones should have been 
left, either for xDe to discover or to decide 
upon: but, as the true import (f one of 
these stations had never been given, nor 
the meaning of the name of any one. of our 
nations been ever understoodf the reader 
will, I conceive, find something interesu 
ing in what I have before written, and be 
pleased to see the claims of the royal re¬ 
sidence of New Windsor for being B^- 
bmicte, considered in a plain and rational 
manner, in such a manner too that they 
cannot by any possible means be inva¬ 
lidated. A. B. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 
SIR, 
S EEING in your Magazine, a letter 
signed S. F. Pilgrim, in w'hich he re¬ 
quests to be knowm the cause of the very 
unnatural propensity of domesticated 
animals devouring their young, I have to 
offer the following concise observations; 
1. That what appears to be a propensity, 
I believe to be nought more than a neces¬ 
sitous, though truly unnatural, act. 
* See my letter in your Magazine on this, 
first proving this place to be Durolevum of the 
Itinerary. 
t Nearly the same may be said concernlpg 
the names of places and of nations through¬ 
out the globe. . 
2. It 
