[The above copy of a Latin deed and its translation is endorsed :-"Cirograph temp. Edwd. IInd. The advowson of the Church of Blundesdon Saint Andrew near Swindon, Wilts. I gave the original to my cousin, George Akerman, of Blunsdon in 1845. J. Y. A[kerman."] It is now in the Society's Museum"Cuttings and Scraps, O."]

DEVIZES CASTLE MOAT.

The Devizes Gazette, February 28th, 1895, has a letter on "Norman Devizes," by Mr. H. G. Barrey, discussing Mr. Waylen's account of the Castle, and stating that the railway tunnel is cut in the made soil of a huge ditch-a "Belgic Ditch"-now filled up. The lines are laid, he says, 45ft. below the present bottom of the "moat," and yet the "Engineer is said to have reported that in no case had his work touched the bottom of the trench."

OPENING OF BARROWS, &c., near Haxon.

In June, 1851, I opened a long barrow east of Combe, about half-a-mile from Beach's Barn, and nearly south-west from Everleigh Church, which had been ploughed over for some years, and reduced in height to little more than 4ft. There was no central interment, but at the east end we found a very great heap of large flints, beneath which were many skeletons in complete disorder. A perfect lower jaw with sixteen teeth was brought away. With only two men it was impossible to examine the barrow in the day, so it was reluctantly left.

In September, 1894, I visited the neighbourhood again, hoping thoroughly to complete the examination. On this occasion Mr. B. H. Cunnington and Col. Dunn were present. We were wrongly directed to a large barrow under culti vation ou Haxon Down. In this a considerable section was made without definite results, but on the floor of the barrow there was an abundance of wood ashes, and scattered throughout the earth were numerous flint-flakes, with some good examples of scrapers, also, just under the surface, a large four-sided conical weapon or bludgeon.' The evidence was in favour of its being a cremated interment. On the following morning we were again disappointed. A barrow under cultivation, three-fourths of a mile east of Combe, was attempted, and this proved to be a round barrow which had been previously opened; near the centre were many portions of a skeleton, and a fragment of thick Ancient British urn. On the afternoon of the same day we were directed by Mr. Burry to a field about two hundred yards south of Beach's Barn, and adjoining the old Salisbury and Devizes Road, where large flints were frequently ploughed up, and where, extending over several acres, there are indistinct traces of long angular banks, and much general irregularity of the surface, showing that there had been former Occupation. In two excavations on this spot we soon had abundant evidence of a Romano-British station. Every shovelfull of earth contained fragments of pottery, stone roofing-tiles, brick-tiles, flat-headed nails, &c., with occasional pieces of Samian ware, though genuine examples were rare. The pottery was

'These implements are now in our Museum.

mostly of a common kind, with much of the smother-kiln, black variety, also some imitation Samian. Oyster shells were abundant (none of the "real natives") and a few shells of Mytilus edulis, so common on our coasts. These are of interest Have they been before found in connection with RomanoBritish antiquities? There were teeth and bones in abundance of the ordinary domestic animals, horse, ox, sheep, hog, &c. In one of the holes, at a depth of 2ft., there was a level space paved with stone tiles, mostly of oolitic rock. This spot would doubtless yield abundant remains of the ancient inhabitants, if carefully and thoroughly examined.

W. CUNNINGTON.

MS. ACCOUNT OF EXCAVATIONS IN WILTS.

May 10th, 1894. "The President, Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, exhibited and presented [to the Library of the Society of Antiquaries, London] William Cunnington's account of the excavations he made for Sir Richard Colt Hoare in the Barrows of Wiltshire, with notes by Sir R. C. Hoare and others, in five folio volumes in manuscript, from the Stourhead Library."-From Proceedings Soc. Ant. Lond., 2nd Series, vol. xv., No. II.

PERAMBULATION OF PART OF THE GREAT PARK OF FASTERNE, IN THE PARISH OF WOOTTON BASSETT, IN MAY, 1602. (Copied from the original document in the Wilts Museum, at Devizes, and printed in Swindon Advertiser, June 5th, 1886.)

"A noot [note] of the perambulation on Braden's syed on Mondaye, the 18th of Maye, 1602, going and vewing the boundes and meres deviding the mannors of Wotton and Brynkworthe of the west syed, going directlye by the bounds. and meares as the moost eldest and auncient men hath knowen and hard [heard] tyme aught of mynde, and how it was used sythens [since] and befoure the great park was dysparked, as also what their foore-fathers hathe tould them when they were children going the perambulation, whoes names are underwritten with their agges:

John Bathe 80 yeares

Thomas Phelps 76 yeares

Thomas Robyns

100

1

Imprimis, the first daye going the perambulation from Wotton to 1 Broadwayes

66

"Broadways gaat" stood where the cottages belonging to Sir H. B. Meux, Bart., are built in Whitehill Lane; the road at this place greatly widens down to Hooker's Gate. "Woak" or Oak-Hay" means an enclosure of oaks. The fields are now called "Hookers," corrupted, no doubt, from "Oak-Hay." This was the place where "the Duke had his way forthe," but whether it was intended

gaat thorough Whitehill, whoakhayes and woakhayes meadow, passing into a ground lately inclosed ought of the common (in Brinkworth parish), by Sir Henry Knyvett dyrection or some of his offycers as we have hard at which plasse it ys sayed by thees old men, as they have hard their foorfathers saye, the Duke had his waye forthe there by a gaat called faoffe gaat, and from that the prambulation went dyrectlye in the ought syde [outside] of the parcke as the waye lyethe to the sand pyttes at the fur corner of the great parcke on Brinkworth hill, and from thence along the waye deviding the mannor of Wotton and Mughall on the northe syde to a Crosse at hie gaat which stands the dystance from the

to mean the Duke of York or Somerset is not known, but probably the former. There are some depressions in the ground at the corner of the park on Brinkworth Hill, which were probably the "sand pyttes."-The "Cross at hiegaat" must have stood near Mr. Tuck's farm-house. At Highgate was the entrance from Fasterne Park to Brayden Forest, and on the 4th of June, 1549, Mr. John Berwick, Steward to the Protector Somerset, (vide Longleat Papers, Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xiv.), wrote to Sir John Thynne informing him that he had just then put into Brayden, from Fasterne, five hundred deer, of which a great part were inferior ones, or "rascalls"-the reason being that grass in that year was remarkably early. There is a field still called "Gadcrafte." From Baynard's Ash the boundary of the park went along the ridge towards Wootton Bassett, where there is, or was, a walk called the "Row Dow," thence at the back of the houses in Victory Row, across the bottom of Wood Street, and the Butt Hay, to where the hedge divides Mr. F. Weston's property from Sir Henry Meux's, across the upper part of Whitehill Lane, and on the high ground to the Great Western Railway, which it crossed, and down to the brook below Hunt's Mill. It then went up to Fastern Wilderness. There was another old or inner park, which included about forty acres of Whitehill Farm, Old Park Farm, the Hart or Half's Farm, and part of Hunt's Mill Farm. On the west side the stream from Tockenhain and Lyneham divided the Wootton Bassett and Grittenham manors. Near Hooker's Gate is "Brynning's" or Browning's Bridge, which bridge is mentioned in the oldest known perambulation of the ancient forest of Braden, that commenced there. The "Quene Anne" must have been Anne of Cleves, or Anne Boleyn.

The late Canon Jackson kindly sent to the writer the following extract from the Register of the Protector Somerset's Estates in Wilts (when Viscount Beauchamp, 1540), copied from the original at Longleat:-"There is in the said mannor [of Midghall] a certain wood called Calo-wood, and contaynith 100 acres, in the which grow bryers, furze, and thornes, with young okes, and the tenants say that from Ward's lane unto the east part of the parke called Fasterne Parke, the Queen [Katherine Parr] shall have the breadthe of an acre and a halfe of the said wood to mayntayn the hedge of the said parke." The site of the house of the Ranger of Fasterne Park is known, being on the north side of the Thunderbrook, on Whitehill Farm, and rather more than a quarter of a mile to the east of Dovey's Bridge. There was a deep moat round it, which enclosed an area of about half-an acre of land, the fertility of which still strangely con trasts with the barrenness of that by which it is surrounded. Callow Hill is at the corner of the great park at Brinkworth.

great parcke mound some fyve perche or lugge, and soe all the waye sometimes moore from thence along the waye where standithe a great woorke which it is supposed was left for a meare [boundary] deviding and standing between Mughall and Wotton's wood which was called the Ragge that Syr John Danvers fellyd [felled] belonging to Wotton, so along to Gadcrafte corner, where divers dothe say that a mearston lyinge within the shoore of the dyche by gadcrafte, deviding the mannor of Wotton and Mughall so as Mughall had nothing to doe withought the 'eyther between Braydene lane and Shropshire marsh for Wotton dothe macke and mayntayne all the waye, and it was ever called Quene Anne's waye by which they hathe by theyre passing to Braydene, and all other men hathe and not other waies these witnesses before mentioned further saye that they know one John Munte and John Streete, Thomas Ledlens, John Trowe, Richard Baithe were workmen to kepe and mend the great parcke hedge and bound from Baynard's Ashe lane and well to near Brinkworthe Hill, and alwaies dyd shroud and cut theyre fuell for that purpose along all the Raage on Braden's syde, alwaies taking so much skoop [scope] from the hedge as a man could through a hatchet, and for tryall, John Mountaine being one of the workmen, dyd through his hatchet eight lugge [eight poles], and so dyd Thomas Roodwaye and three others, which was ever held for a certayne distance how far they myght cut the fuell wy thought [without] denyall, and so held and mayntayned time ought of mynde, and these workmen were payde for there worke by one Mr. Predye being then Raynger to the great parcke under Sir Henry Long, who was for the Kyng [viz., Edward V1.]. Itm. further they sayeth that they know one Christopher Robins was great unkell to William Robins, now one of your tennants at Baynard's Ashe, and John Skeet father to William Skeet of the same place, were always warned to the fence court, and did ever serve in the Jurye, and so theyre predecessors tyme ought of mynde, and no exception of Wotton for theyre common of Braden untill of laut time."

W. F. PARSONS.

Notes on Natural History.

ALTERNATING GENERATIONS: a Biological Study of Oak Galls and Gall Flies; By Hermann Adler, M.D. Schleswig. Translated and edited by Charles R. Straton, F.R.C.S., Ed., F.E.S., with illustrations. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press. 1894. (Price 10s. 6d.) Cr. 8vo, pps. xl. and 198.

Everyone knows the oak apple, but how many people know anything of the life history of the insect by which that well-known gall is formed? It has long

"Eyther" means hedge. "Eder breche" is an old term for hedge-breaking. The tradition of throwing the hatchet was handed down, and known, before the discovery of this old document.

been known that the different galls on the oak-of which the "oak apple” is the best known and most conspicuous form-are due to the action of the larvæ of different species of flies, but until within the last few years no one suspected that the life history of these flies forms one of the most marvellous stories in Nature —so marvellous, indeed, that if the facts had not been verified beyond the shadow of a doubt by the patient researches of English and German naturalists, more especially by those of Dr. Hermann Adler, of Schleswig, they would seem to be incredible, so contrary are they to what are by most people regarded as the universal laws of Nature. It is not so much because these facts constitute a singularly fascinating chapter in natural history for the entomologist, as on account of the important bearing which they have upon the theories of Weismann as to heredity, and on other biological questions of the highest interest, that Mr. C. R. Straton, F.R.C.S., and F.E.S., of Wilton, has translated Dr. Adler's monograph on the gall flies of the oak, and has added to it a learned introduction of forty pages of his own.

To explain this let us see what Dr. Adler tells us of the life history of the beautiful gall often seen on the leaf of the oak, of the size of a marble, yellow, streaked and mottled with red. This gall (Dryophanta scutellaris) is always attached to the veins on the under side of the leaf. It appears in July, matures in October, and the fly emerges from the gall in December, January, or February, according to the weather. The flies only live a few days, and the difficulty hitherto has been to bridge over the gap between January-when the perfect insect appears-and July-when the gall containing the infant larva just hatched from the egg first begins to show on the vein of the oak leaf. How is the egg laid on the leaf? Dr. Adler has solved the mystery by hatching out flies from the galls and keeping them carefully under control and examination. “I had kept a large quantity of galls out of doors through the winter, and in January the flies began to take flight. I put them on a little oak tree indoors, and observed that after a few days they began to oviposit, choosing the little adven titious buds that were on the stem. The buds were pricked in the following manner. The fly reared itself, directing its ovipositor to the point of the bud, and boring down into it perpendicularly. The fly is armed for this purpose with a tolerably straight and strong ovipositor. Some time is required to complete the act of ovipositing and the fly usually stands half an hour in the pricking posture. In each bud only one egg is laid. If a pricked bud is examined it will be seen that the egg lies at the base of the bud axis. . . . therefore it may be predicted with certainty that a bud gall will be the result. In my experiments thirty-four buds were pricked between January 20th and January 26th, but it was not until the end of April that I was able to observe the beginning of gall formation in any of the buds. The points of the buds became dark blue, and soon the dainty velvety galls of Spathegaster Taschenbergi became evident; by the beginning of May eleven galls developed on the tree."

Now this gall bears no resemblance whatever to the apple-like gall from which the fly sprung from whose egg the larva causing it was hatched, and the flies themselves which emerge from these galls at the end of May or beginning of June are quite different from the parent flies, so much so as to have been always regarded as actually belonging to distinct genera, yet Dr. Adler has proved that the flies emerging from the apple gall on the leaf in January lay the eggs from