Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/59

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NOTES AND QUERIES.


MAMMALIA.

hominidae.

Early Man in Britain.—At Brandon, a village and parish on the borders of Suffolk and Norfolk, there have been recently found, in a field within eighty yards from the Little Ouse or Brandon river, no fewer than sixty-three skulls, which have been examined and described by Mr. Charles S. Myers, B.A., in the 'Journal of the Anthropological Institute.' Mr. Myers is inclined to "assign these remains to a people that lived antecedent to the Saxon invasion. Indeed, there is but one skull in this series that presents in any degree the physical characters of Saxon crania." This prompts the further conclusion that, "if the Brandon skulls date, as there is every reason to believe, from an age prior to the Saxon invasion, the presence of a Saxon in England at this date demonstrates that the Saxon invasion took place more gradually than history would have us conceive, or that Saxons were included in the auxiliary forces introduced by the Romans. Doubtless both these alternatives are true. Even in pre-Roman times the Iceni were a mixed people. Thus the Roman institution of the Comes Litoris Saxonica becomes fraught with a new meaning. On some such hypotheses the early Brandon folk may well have received a sprinkling of Saxon settlers along the Icknield Way from the eastern ports."—Ed.

carnivora.

Dogs of Draught in Belgium.—No visitor to Brussels can fail to be struck with the number of Dogs which are to be seen about the streets employed in drawing small carts and barrows. It has been recently estimated that in the capital alone more than 10,000 Dogs are thus employed, and the number of draught Dogs throughout the country is probably not less than 50,000. Generations of servitude have thus made the Belgian Dog a race sui generis. For his size he is said to possess the greatest pulling power of any animal, four times his own weight being considered a load well within his powers. Taking his average weight as 56 lbs., or half a hundredweight, this means that something like 5000 tons are daily dragged about by Dogs in Belgium. The economic importance of the Belgian Dog, and his inability to give expression to his own grievances,

Zool. 4th ser. vol. I., Jan. 1897.
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