her brothers and sisters, was, as a child, made by her mother to eat, as a cure for whooping cough, bread which had been buried for three days in a pot in the ground.) Fig. 7 shows a second specimen, mounted as a gold scarf pin and fitted with onyx eyes; this was worn by a recently deceased solicitor. A "cramp bone exhibited had been preserved for the cure of cramp in one family for over 100 years, and apparently consists of a sawn-off portion of a horse's frog. A rabbit's foot is a well-known amulet in this country, being mounted, for example, on bonnets adorned with the unlucky peacock's feathers. Fig. 8 shows a rabbit's foot bought here, but apparently, from the accompanying bill, prepared in the United States. The bill contains illustrations of six forms in which the foot can be obtained, and runs as follows:

"NEW MASCOT IN STERLING SILVER.

"In many parts of the country it is considered a great sign of good luck to carry somewhere on the person a rabbit's foot, either as a watch charm or in some other way. It is said, indeed, that one of our Presidential candidates carries one constantly in his pocket.

"The articles illustrated above are made of rabbits' feet cleverly mounted in sterling silver. The manufacturers claim that each is the left hind foot of a rabbit killed in a country graveyard at midnight, during the dark of the moon, on Friday, the thirteenth of the month, by a cross-eyed, left-handed, redheaded, bow-legged negro riding a white horse. This we do not guarantee. "We are prepared to fill mail orders, with privilege of return if not satisfactory."

From the word "month the manufacturers seem to have made an addition of their own to a genuine negro superstition. There was a curious legal action in New York, in 1905, to recover a rabbit's foot mascot from Nan Patterson, the Florodora chorus girl who was acquitted of the charge of murdering an English bookmaker. It seems that this rabbit's foot had been borne as an amulet at the trials of a number of alleged murderers, and that Nan Patterson was offered by a certain Elkhart all her legal charges if she refused to return it. The recovered foot was offered to Harry Thaw for his trial, but refused by him.

Several horse-shoe charms were shown, one of which had been hung up for several years for luck in a London house, and another (Fig. 9) was a miniature one specially made for a woman who

One of the writers, when buying several Roman Catholic medals for children, also exhibited, from a London street stall, noticed on it a horse-shoe which had once been gilded and was supported, easel fashion, by a twisted wire. On asking the price, he was told it could not be sold. "The fact is, it belongs to a neighbour. We've had very bad luck since we started this stall, and he's lent it to us to see if it'll turn our luck. But I don't see that we've done much better." It will be remembered that, while Mr. Sievier was awaiting the jury's verdict in a recent Old Bailey trial, a horse-shoe in a bag was handed up to him "for luck." When "Ken's Kabin" was opened by the revolting waitresses last April, the newspapers noted that

"immediately after the opening hour yesterday a 'bus horse cast a shoe opposite the 'Kabin' door. The quick-eyed attendant outside espied this omen of good fortune, and darted after it. Returning with his prize, he presented it to Ken,' who passed it on to Mrs. Holland, who, in turn, made an interesting discovery. There were five nails in the discarded shoe. 'And there are five more years of the lease of this shop to run: a nail for each year,' exclaimed Mrs. Holland joyfully."

A few days later "Ken's Kabin" was closed.

The ring charms shown comprised a silver "longevity ring" of two interlaced snakes; evil-eye ring of silver set with a red chalcedony; astrological ring made under the sign of Libra; gold toadstone ring for the cure of king's evil; ring with onyx cut to form eye for warding off evil eye; and rheumatism ring containing a strip of squirrel's skin. In connection with the last object, it may be interesting to note that a Sioux Indian amulet against rheumatism is the lower jaw of a squirrel.

The shell charms comprised a cowrie attached to a seal, and a cowrie set with a tiny compass and sold as 'lucky' by a London

coster.

The stone amulets comprise the two most original forms of amulet still to be found in the British Isles, the naturally-perforated stone and the many objects known as "thunderbolts." As to the primitive mind any object of abnormal shape suggested "magic," holed stones, nodules of iron pyrites, belemnites, flint arrow heads, and the like were believed to possess powers of protection from lightning and from many of the ills which assail the body. Such

objects have been found associated with deposits of Neolithic age. Several perforated discs of stone were shown to illustrate this, as well as a fossil echinoderm embedded in a perforated flint and found on the breast of the skeleton in a Saxon interment on the South Downs. A fossil shown from the Cretaceous formation, known as Porosphora globularis, is a rounded body having a natural perforation, and it was suggested that this may have been the natural type from which globular beads were derived, tubular beads originating from the stems of encrinites, known in Yorkshire as St. Cuthbert's beads. Both these fossils have been found associated with prehistoric burials. A large water-worn stone, perforated for suspension, was a hag-stone from Lancashire, in use about ninety years ago as a protection from hags or witches. Upon it a cross had been engraved, a Christian symbol being thus grafted upon a pre-Christian amulet. polished Neolithic celt (Fig. 11), found deposited upon the open roof beam of a cottage near Portrush, Ireland, had been regarded as a thunderbolt, and a belemnite (Fig 12) was so regarded in Surrey, as also were nodules of iron pyrites from the Cretaceous formation near Croydon collected by Mr. Lovett about forty years ago. The story of a beautifully polished greenstone celt shown illustrates the difficulty of obtaining such objects from their possessors. About twenty-five years ago, during a visit to Jersey, Mr. Lovett found this celt in a labourer's cottage, and much wished to add it to his collection of stone implements. The owner, however, would not part with it, saying that it was a thunderbolt and would save his family from sickness and harm. He was offered five shillings, and a few days later ten shillings, but would not listen to the offers. The following year Mr. Lovett again called upon the owner of the thunderbolt and offered him fifteen shillings for it, with no result. The bid was raised to twenty shillings, but without success. About eight months later a

1 Such celts are thought in Ireland to protect cottages from lightning, and the same protection is ascribed in England to the house leek, sempervivum tectorum, and may have led to its growth on roofs. In Germany sempervivum soboliferum is called the "thunder flower," as well as "Jupiter's beard," and is referred to in an edict by Charlemagne, "Et habeat quisque supra domum suum Jovis barbam." In Japan the "sunrise grass" or