there, which doubtless owed its richness to long occupation in former times. The circular enclosure within which the copper cake lay was thirty feet in diameter. Numerous querns had been obtained in clearing off the stones; and in breaking up the land the plough had frequently come to a standstill over an obstruction within the area, which it was at last determined to rout out. Instead of a boulder, as was supposed, the obstacle proved to be a mass of copper, placed endwise in the ground, which was likewise the position in which the Dindryfael and Bryn-du specimens were deposited. The tenant of the farm described certain drains, which he reconstructed for our edification with some flat stones lying about. He said they were about one foot high, and the same in breadth, being filled with red ashes. Possibly they may have been connected with smelting operations. An old paved way, leading from the direction of Parys mountain, came at one time close to the circular enclosure. The adjacent millstone grit, extensively worked at the present day, doubtless furnished the querns in Roman times. I picked up a piece of Samian on the spot, and my belief is that, as was suggested by Mr. Prichard, these quarries being worked, it was necessary to have workshops at hand for the manufacture and repair of quarrying implements; and we may suppose that in many instances the quern spindles would be of bronze, iron being more expensive. This beautiful cake, of which I give a drawing, is eleven inches in diameter, two and a half inches in thickness, and weighs thirty-two pounds. There is a well-defined moulding of about an inch deep running all round it. Some markings on the bottom look, at first sight, not unlike the letter R, but they are probably accidental. W. WYNN WILLIAMS.

Bodewryd: March 1877.

DOG-TONGS.

SOME of the stories told by the late Dean Ramsey, in his Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, of the sagacity of collie dogs, must, to judge from certain mementoes, have had their amusing as well as ridiculous counterparts in the Principality, only they have lacked the pen of the witty Dean to chronicle them. Following their masters through the labours of the week, they did not see why they should not share their Sabbath observances; but they had their own notions of the proper length of such indulgences, and they had their own ways of making their opinions known. Neither were they altogether free from the clannish pride and partisanship of their owners: indeed, it was no uncommon thing for them to start up in vigorous assertion of their offended dignity, and that at moments and in places highly inopportune; and many a stout heart that would have collared his offending fellowman, kept at a prudent distance from the uninviting teeth of the too faithful companion. Still certain unpleasant duties had to be performed, and a timely invention came to the aid of the disconcerted churchwarden. The illustration given shows very well the form of the instrument both at rest and in motion, and its character has become familiar to us in another use, under the name of "Lazy-tongs". Some of the joints, including the handle, have been lost from the present instance; but the handle was not unlike the forceps or catching end, which was in some cases (as at Gyffylliog) lined with nail-heads or small knobs to make the grip more secure as well as more cautionary. No convenient pew could shelter the offender, and no amount of snarling could any longer ward off the certain, not to say ignominious, expulsion of the culprit. The dog-tongs had only to be quietly taken off the seat

on which they lay so innocently, and the handles brought quickly together, when out shot the jointed folds and arms, and in an instant seized the helpless wretch around the neck or leg, and without danger or ceremony extruded him from the place.

The usefulness of such an instrument must have been very great when dogs were more in the habit of attending church than they happily now are, and when it was even necessary to appoint an officer to see to their proper conduct, or, if necessary, their summary exclusion. There was one occasion on which the presence of a dog was held to be specially ominous, for Pennant tells us that "among the Highlanders, during the marriage ceremony, great care was taken that dogs should not pass between the couple to be married." (Brand's Popular Antiquities, ii, p. 170.) Whether such a cus

4TH SER., VOL. VIII.

15

tom prevailed also in the Principality does not appear, neither are we told the reason of the precaution; but may it not have been interpreted as an omen that there would be more love for the old dog than for the new wife?

The tongs here illustrated are from Clodock Church in Herefordshire, and were exhibited by the Rev. C. L. Eagles in the Temporary Museum at Abergavenny in 1876. A similar pair, but more perfect, from Llanynys Church, Denbighshire, were exhibited by the Rev. John Davies, vicar, at the Wrexham Meeting in 1874. Another, as already mentioned, existed in Gyffylliog Church in the same county.

D. R. T.

CAMROSE CHURCH.

THE most casual observer cannot fail to have been struck by the very marked contrast which the ever-changing appearance of one of our large towns presents when compared with the stagnant growth of a country village in some remote corner of this island. Far away from the centres of commerce and civilisation these hamlets still preserve that old world look we seek to find in vain elsewhere. They form, indeed, an invaluable link between the present and the past, and give a very fair idea of the state of things which existed when Liverpool was a fishing village and London a group of thatched houses, cowering beneath the frowns of a mediæval fortress.

A visit to Camrose, in Pembrokeshire, will take us back almost to this period. It is a village four miles to the north-west of Haverfordwest, consisting of a few scattered cottages, with walls of whitewashed mud and roofs of thatch. Probably the only difference between Camrose of to-day and Camrose of five hundred years ago, is that a large dissenting meeting house now shares