The antiquarian objects, popularly called adder-beads, serpent stones, or druidical beads, were frequently used for the cure of cattle. The beads were dipped in water, and the liquid was then given to the animals to drink. These relics of a long-forgotten past have been found from time to time in ancient places of sepulture, and as they usually occur singly, it has been conjectured that they were placed there as amulets. "Many of them," remarks Sir Daniel Wilson in his "Pre-historic Annals," "are exceedingly beautiful, and are characterised by considerable ingenuity in the variations of style. Among those in the Scottish Museum there is one of red glass spotted with white; another of dark brown glass streaked with yellow; others of pale green and blue glass, plain and ribbed; and two of curiously figured patterns, wrought with various colours interwoven on their surface." A fine specimen of this species of amulet was discovered in a grave mound at Eddertoun, in Ross-shire, during the progress of the railway operations in 1864. The Rev. Dr. Joass, who interested himself in the antiquarian discoveries then made, thus describes the find:--"The glass, of which this bead was composed, was of a dark blue colour, and but partially transparent. It was ornamented by three volutes, which sufficed to surround it. These were traced in a yellow pigment (or enamel) as hard as the glass and seeming to sink slightly below the surface into the body of the bead, as could be seen where this was flattened, as if by grinding at the opposite ends of its orifice." These adder-beads seem to have been common in the seventeenth century. Edward Llwyd, who visited Scotland in 1699, saw fifty different forms of them between Wales and the Scottish Highlands. Crystal balls, he tells us, were frequently put into a tub of water on May Day, the contents of the tub being sprinkled over cattle to keep them from being bewitched. Flint arrow-heads--the weapons of early times--became the amulets of a later age. In folklore they are known as elf-bolts. Popular credulity imagined that they were used by the fairies for the destruction of cattle. When an animal was attacked by some sudden and mysterious disease, it was believed to be "elf-shot" even though no wound could be seen on its body. To cure the cow, the usual method was to make it drink some water in which an elf-bolt had been dipped, on the principle of taking a hair of the dog that bit you. Elf-arrows were at one time thought to be serviceable to man also. The custom was not unknown of sewing one of them in some part of the dress as a charm against the influence of the evil eye. Occasionally one still sees them doing duty as brooches, and in that form, if not now prized as amulets, they are esteemed as ornaments.