Taken amongst decayed vegetable refuse, &c. Generally distributed.

PRUINOSUS, Brandt.

Bate and Westwood, v. ii. p. 487.

My specimens are something like Kock's variety, Maculicornis, having the antennæ annulated with white, and tail appendages orange-yellow. Mine have, in addition to this, a distinct elliptical black spot on the posterior edge of each segment. The spots are placed vertically on the segments. Taken in the pathway in the Close, Exeter. This is a very active little species.

PICTUS, Brandt and Ratzeburg.

Bate and Westwood, v. ii. p. 480.

One specimen only I captured near Exeter. This is, as its name implies, painted of the brightest yellow and bluishlead colour. A very handsome species.

GENUS, ARMADILLO, Latreille.

VULGARIS, Linnæus.

Desmarest, Dict. des. Sci. Nat., t. 40, fgs. 6-7; Bate and Westwood, v. ii. p. 492.

Very common amongst decayed wood, under walls, in dryish places.

This species varies very much in colour, from dark-lead to pale yellowish-buff. It has from six to eight oblique lines on each side of the first seven segments, leaving a smooth dorsal space. These lines appear to be slightly raised above the surface of the plates, but they are not really so. Their obliquity and position remind one very much of markings on the plates of some Chitons.

SOME HITHERTO UNRECORDED HILL FORTRESSES

NEAR ASHBURTON.

BY P. F. S. AMERY.

(Read at Sidmouth, July, 1873.)

HAD this subject been undertaken by one of our members versed in archæology, and accustomed to view ancient remains of different ages, and erected for various purposes, we might expect that his experience and learning would throw some ray of light through the darkness which obscures the origin and use of the many hill forts, castles, rings, or by whatever name the earthworks may be called, which crown so many of our hills in the South Hams and other parts of the county. But in the absence of such a paper, I can simply place on record in the Transactions of our Association the existence and present state of five such remains, fast passing from view, two of which are only remembered by a few seniors of our town, among whom is Mr. Robert Tucker; another scarcely traceable, as year by year the plough levels its ramparts and fills its ditches; whilst the others are so hidden in dense woods that few know even of their whereabouts. I shall confine my remarks to these five, because I have been unable to find them recorded in any works where similar remains are mentioned; but at the same time I shall not overlook a few facts, which I leave for others to judge whether or not they bear on the subject.

Camps on Ashburton Down.-On an elevated and exposed heath, known as Ashburton and Storms down, but formerly Estdowne," a great part of which is now enclosed and planted, existed, within the memory of the present generation, as far as I have been able to discover, two enclosures, each formed by a ditch. One seems to have surrounded the western crest of the hill behind Alston plantation, the other the eastern crest on Storms down, about half a mile distant. They commanded an extensive view of the road from Ilsington to Ashburton-thought by some to have been the early

highway between Exeter and Plymouth, passing over the high lands of Hennock and Bovey rather than the low country taken by the present road near Stover, which must have been unfit for a highway until extensively drained. I find an entry among the receipts in the Ashburton churchwardens' account for the year 1523, as follows: "xiid from the gift of William Leer of Witton in satisfaction for ploughing the King's way (regie vie) leading from Owlecombe towards Ayssheberton above the Estdowne on the east side of the aforesaid Witton," which seems to point to the road then being of some importance. Toward the south-east the whole of the low, rich lands between Newton Abbot and Totnes, with Denbury down and its entrenched summit, are spread out as a map below, whilst from west to north the range of moor hills from Brent Hill to Haytor Rocks is commanded.

Place Wood, or Tower Hill Castle.-About a mile northeast of Ashburton rises a steep hill known as Tower Hill, in fact, a spur of Ashburton Down, traversed by the abovementioned road to Ilsington, on the highest point of which, and adjoining the road, can still be traced, by the undulations of the ground, the remains of an ancient fosse, in two fields. called Castle Parks, surrounded on two sides by Place Wood and Whiddon Cliff Copse. This spot, once a hill fort, but by whom used there is no lingering tradition to tell, commands on the south-east much the same view as those on Ashburton Down, but toward the south and west the whole of the valley between Ashburton and the moor is full in view, as well as the course of an ancient pathway down the side of the hill to lanes now almost disused, leading, without passing through Ashburton, to fords on the Dart on the Plymouth highway, and probably once the continuation of the same western road mentioned above, and still, as is not uncommon, remaining to the public as a footpath right. The farm in the valley below the castle, toward the southeast, is called Balland-perhaps connected with Bel, or Bal, the Mars of the British, and so the "Champ de Mars" of the castle.

Boro Wood Camp.-About a mile and a half north of Ashburton, and separated from Tower Hill and its adjoining woods by a stream now called the Yeo, but formerly the Ashburn, from which, doubtless, the town took its name, is Boro Wood. Lysons says that Boro in Celtic meant an enclosure or fort; and at the highest part of this wood there