is told of a seal which cast its skin and appeared as a woman. A man of the Isle of Unst possessed himself of the seal-skin and thus captured and married her. She lived with him until one day she recovered the skin, resumed her seal-shape and plunged into the sea, never more to return. In Croatia the damsel is a wolf whose wolf-skin a soldier steals. In the Arabian Nights she is a jinn wearing the feather-plumage of a bird, apparently assumed simply for the purpose of flight. In all these cases the variations are produced by causes easily assigned.

The specific distinctions of a nation's culture are not necessarily limited to changes of traditions which it may have borrowed from its neighbours or inherited from a common stock. It may conceivably develop traditions peculiar to itself. This is a subject hardly yet investigated by students of folklore. Their labours have hitherto been chiefly confined to establishing the identity underlying divergent forms of tradition and explaining the meaning of practices and beliefs by comparison of the folklore of distant races at different stages of evolution. But there are not wanting those who are turning their attention to a province as yet unconquered, and indeed almost undiscovered. Even if they only succeed in establishing a negative, if they show that all traditions supposed to be peculiar have counterparts elsewhere, they will have rendered a signal service to science, and produced incontrovertible testimony of the unity of the human mind and the unintermittent force of the laws which govern it.

Alike for the purpose of ascertaining the specific distinctions of culture and the influences of neighbouring nations and neighbouring civilisations, an accumulation of facts is the prime requisite. If we have reason to believe in the persistence of tradition, we shall have confidence that relics will be discovered in our midst of the faith and institutions of our remoter ancestors; and, in accordance as we venerate antiquity or desire to preserve what remains of the past, we shall hasten to collect them. Nor can we be too quick in so doing. The blood of our forefathers is a permanent inheritance, which it would take many generations and a large intermingling of foreigners seriously to dilute, much less to destroy. But tradition is rapidly dying. It is dwindling away before the influences of modern civilisation. Formerly, when the rural districts were isolated, when news travelled slowly and nobody thought of leaving his home save to go to the nearest market, and that not too often, when education did not exist for the peasantry and the landowners had scarcely more than a bowing acquaintance with it, the talk by the fireside on winter evenings was of the business of the day-the tilling, the crops, the kine. Or it was the gossip and small scandals interesting to such a community, or reminiscences by the elders of the past. Thence it would easily glide into tales and superstitions. And we know that these tales and superstitions were, in fact, the staple of conversation among our fathers and generally throughout the West of Europe, to go no further afield, down to a very recent period; and they still are in many districts. In England, however, railways, newspapers, elementary education, politics, and the industrial movements which have developed during the present century have changed the ancient modes of life; and the old traditions are fading out of memory. The generation that held them is fast passing away. The younger generation has never cared to learn them; though, of course, many of the minor superstitions and sayings have still a considerable measure of power, especially in the shape of folk-medicine and prescriptions for luck. We must

make haste, therefore, if we desire to add to the scanty information on record concerning English folklore.

As a starting-point for the collection of Gloucestershire folklore I put together, a year or two ago, the folklore in Atkyns, Rudder, and the first four volumes of Gloucestershire Notes and Queries; and it was printed by the Folklore Society and issued as a pamphlet. Other works remain to be searched; and it is probable that a good deal more may be found already in print, if some who are interested in the antiquities of the country will undertake the not very arduous, but very necessary, labour of collection. When all is gathered, however, it will only be a small part of what must have existed at no distant date-if not of what still exists, awaiting diligent inquiry among living men and women. How to set about the inquiry is a question that must be left very much to the individual inquirer to answer. Valuable practical hints are given in the Handbook of Folklore, a small volume that may be bought for half-a-crown and carried in the pocket. Confidence between the collector and those from whom he is seeking information is the prime necessity. Keep your notebook far in the background, and beware of letting the peasant know the object of your curiosity, or even of allowing him to see that you are curious. Above all, avoid leading questions. If you are looking for tales, tell a tale yourself. Do anything to establish a feeling of friendly sympathy. Never laugh at your friend's superstitions-not even if he laugh at them himself; for he will not open his heart to you if he suspect you of despising them.

There is one other division of the schedule to which I have not yet referred. The Dialect is perishing as rapidly as the folklore; it is being overwhelmed by the same foes. Peculiarities of dialect are due partly to physical, partly to mental, causes. From either point of view they are of interest to the investigator of antiquities. Hence their inclusion among the subjects of the Ethnographical Survey. Nobody who has once understood how much of history is often wrapped up in a single word can fail to perceive the importance of a study of dialect, or how largely it may contribute to the determination of the origin of a given population. The reduction of dialect into writing requires accuracy to distinguish the niceties of pronunciation, and some practice to set them down; but a little experience will overcome most difficulties, which, after all, are not great. It is believed that most of the words-as distinguished from their pronunciation—in use have been recorded in the publications of the English Dialect Society or elsewhere. But it is better to record them again than to leave them unrecorded. Nor should it be forgotten in this connection that a word often bears a different shade of meaning in one place from what it bears in another. In recording any words, care should therefore be taken to seize not only the exact sound, but the exact signification, if it be desired to make a real contribution towards the history of the country, or the history of the language. Of the method of collection and transcription it is needless to add to the directions in the schedule.

1 County Folklore. Printed Extracts-No. 1, Gloucestershire. London: D. Nutt, 1892. 18.

The Lake Village at Glastonbury.-Second Report of the Committee, consisting of Dr. R. MUNRO (Chairman), Professor W. BOYD DAWKINS, Sir JOHN EVANS, General PITT-RIVERS, and Mr. A. BULLEID (Secretary). (Drawn up by the Chairman and the Secretary.)

I. Report. By Dr. R. MUNRO.

THE site of the Lake Village at Glastonbury occupies some three or four acres of a flat meadow, within the boundaries of what is supposed, on good grounds, to have been formerly a lake or marsh. Before excavations were begun all that the eye could discern on the undisturbed surface were sixty or seventy low mounds huddled in the corner of a field. Only about one half of these mounds has as yet been systematically explored, but, so far, the original surmise that each mound formed the site of a hut, resting on a substratum of beams and brushwood, is entirely confirmed. The operations of the last two summers have been largely confined to tracing the village border, which has now been uncovered to the extent of about two-thirds of its circumference. A vast amount of the heterogeneous débris of human occupancy has been gathered on and around its site, including five complete skulls and other bones of man. These skulls were found outside the stockaded margin, and it has been remarked that no other bones of the body were associated with them. One of them shows a deep cut, as if made by a sword, and another bears evidence of having been supported on a spearhead, which had been inserted vertically through the first cervical vertebra and the occipital foramen. A full account of the technique and purposes of these relics and a list of the flora and fauna collected during the excavations are given in the previous report and in a small guide-book lately published by the Glastonbury Antiquarian Society. Suffice it for the present to say that the relics are of various materials-stone, flint, bronze, iron, bone, horn, glass, pottery, &c. Among the bronze objects are many fibulæ of La Tène forms, spiral finger-rings, penanular brooches, and an elegant bowl. Of bone and horn we have needles, pins, handles, long-handled combs used for wearing, and many other articles. Among the objects of wood are a canoe, the framework of a loom, the staves of buckets, one of which is decorated, part of the axle of a wheel with a couple of spokes in their place. The pottery is very abundant, and often highly ornamented with devices which unmistakably show 'late Celtic art. Many of the industrial relics. exhibit some of the special characteristics of this style of art, the importation of which into Britain preceded, by two or three centuries, the occupation of the island by the Romans; nor does it appear that any of them had been influenced by Roman art. This, indeed, is one of the most interesting features of the Glastonbury find, and this collection of antiquities cannot fail to shed an unexpected light on one of the obscurest periods of British civilisation within prehistoric times. On a previous visit to Glastonbury I observed a leaden weight, shaped like a cheese, having the middle of the rim bulging out It weighs 4 oz. 229 gr. This is the only metallic article hitherto found of which there may be enter tained a suspicion that it had a Roman origin. I understand that Sir Augustus W. Franks has pointed out a piece of pottery recently found which may also have a similar origin. This shows that the village existed as an inhabited place up to Roman times, and it is possible that it was the intrusion of the Romans into this district which put an end to it.

II. Report on the Work carried on during the Past Year.
By ARTHUR BULLEID.

The digging at the Glastonbury Lake Village was discontinued last year in October, and resumed this season towards the end of April. Since presenting the report of the third year's exploration at the Oxford meeting of the Association, 15 dwelling mounds have been examined, making, with those previously laid open, 30 in all. Besides the 15 dwelling mounds, 500 feet of the palisading, forming the west border of the village, has been traced, together with from 15 to 25 feet of peat adjoining and outside it. This, with the like distance of 500 feet dug in 1893-94, completes the examination of about two-thirds of the total circumference of the village, the remaining unexplored portions of the palisading being situated at the north and south sides. Of the original 65 dwelling mounds there still remain about one-half for future examination, as well as the large spaces of ground between them. The palisading examined this year, bordering the west side of the village, was similar to that exposed in previous years, both with reference to the arrangement of the piles and the irregularity of outline, but it was not so strongly made as that on the east side. At one spot, bordering a space between two dwellings, the palisading was discontinued for 60 feet, and a bank of peat substituted for it; the peat wall was kept in place by a single line of upright piles driven down near its centre, the upper parts of the posts being evidently bound together with hurdle work. During the examination of the dwelling mounds the following structural discoveries were made. With reference to the construction of the floors it was noticed that the clay was covered with planks of split timber, and that the method of arranging the wood varied in different dwellings; in two floors the planks were placed in a circular fashion round the hearth, and parallel to the wall of the house. On another floor the boards were lying diagonally across the dwelling in a south-east and northwest direction. In one dwelling mound four superimposed and complete stone hearths were found, having a layer of clay one foot deep intervening between each. In another dwelling a good door-step was unearthed. The timber foundations of the dwelling mounds recently examined have been found to vary little from those previously explored, with this exception, that one of the small mounds was found to be covering a beam of oak fourteen feet in length, with a mortise-hole near each end, one end lying on and at right angles to a large tree trunk, the two pieces of timber being kept in place by a pile, the upper end of which was found a short distance below the hearth of the dwelling. Other mortised beams were discovered in the vicinity, but it has not been possible as yet to make out their original arrangement, but the one just mentioned, although in situ, was evidently not intended, in the first place, for part of the substructure of a dwelling. A number of important objects have been unearthed from the peat outside the village border, as well as from the floors of the dwellings and the ground between them. As during the seasons of 1892, 1893, and 1894, large quantities of handand wheel-made pottery, clay sling pellets, and bones of animals have been dug up. Among the things that may be specially mentioned are the following:

Flint.-A small saw. This was found near the arrow-head mentioned in last year's report.

Stone. Several circular and saddle-shaped quern stones, and many spindle whorls and whetstones.

Bronze. More than fifty pieces of bronze, of various descriptions, including one complete mirror, three pairs of tweezers, one bracelet, ten spiral finger and other rings, one pin, two needles, three fibulæ.

Iron. Among the objects of iron are a spear-head, bill-hook, horsebit, rings, knives, and a flat piece of the metal more than two feet long, presumably an unfinished sword.

Lead. Several rings and spindle whorls, or weights.

Bone. The human remains have been more plentiful than in the previous seasons, and include three complete skulls, fragments of five others, two first cervical vertebræ, one being badly fractured; fragments of bone of a burnt body, the complete skeleton of a very young child, with the exception of the bones of the lower extremities and one arm.

These, with the exception of one bone, were obtained from various parts of the peat outside the village.

The bones of animals and birds found since presenting the last report have not yet been examined.

Worked Bone and Horn.-The objects of cut bone and horn found this season number considerably over a hundred, among them being handles of knives, weaving-combs, needles, haftings, gouges, and a variety of other implements.

Wood. Some of the more important finds made of wood have been :Six spokes of a wheel, about 13 inches long. A complete ladder of four steps, the sides being nearly 7 feet long, made of two split pieces of ash, each side being perforated with four small square mortise-holes for holding the steps. The lowermost step was kept in place by a wooden pin driven through it transversely on the outside. The original top step of wood was missing, but in its place one of plaited withs had been substituted.

A saw-shaped implement of wood, 4 feet long, the greatest width being 2 inches, the handle 15 inches in length; along one edge of the blade portion, which tapers to a point, there are a number of saw-like notches, averaging half an inch in depth. This implement was found lying at the side of the ladder in the peat, outside the west border of the village.

Portions of several tubs, buckets, and cups have been dug up; the tubs were, for the most part, stave-made and dovetailed together with wooden pegs; others were cut from the solid. From measurements the fragments show the complete utensils to have ranged from 6 inches to 2 feet 6 inches in height, and from a few inches to two feet in diameter.

A door 3 feet 6 inches high and 16 inches wide, made of one piece of oak, with projections from one edge, above and below, about 4 inches long. The greater part of a basket, which, when complete, must have been 18 inches high.

Part of a second boat; the fragment is 20 feet long, cut from the solid wood, and belonged to a boat of much greater length. At some places on the inner surface tool-marks and charring were plainly seen.

Many other pieces of wood-work have been found, such as parts of boxes, pegs, pins, and mortised framework.

The botanical, osteological, and geological specimens, recently discovered, have not yet been examined: they will be described in a subsequent report.