supposed to have been the burial-places of a tribe or sept. It must not be overlooked that the tumuli are not, in general, to be regarded as common graves, but as special monumental structures reserved alone for the illustrious dead; among whom, no doubt, were reckoned those who fell in battle, and over whom we may therefore conceive the surviving victors to have erected those gigantic cairns which are occasionally found to cover a multitude of the dead. But some of the Scottish cairns which have been found only to inclose a solitary cist, must have occupied the labour of months, and required the united exertions of a numerous corps of workmen, to gather the materials, and pile them up into such durable and imposing monuments. The remembrance of how greatly the dead of a few generations outnumber the living, would alone suffice to show that the tumuli could not be common sepulchral mounds. Such a custom universally adopted for a few generations in a populous district, would surpass the effects of deluges and earthquakes, in the changes wrought by it on the natural surface of the ground. The laws of Solon interdicted the raising of tumuli on account of the extent of land they occupied; and the Romans enacted the same prohibitory restrictions prior to the time of Cicero. We are familiar with the common modes of British sepulture, contemporaneous with the monumental tumulus; both the cist and the urn being very frequently found without any artificial increase of the superincumbent soil to mark the spot where they are deposited. Their inhumation beneath the soil, as well as the frequent occurrence of numbers together, point them out as the common and undistinguished graves of the builders of the tumuli. Where the tumulus was to be superimposed no such interment took place. The cist was constructed on the natural surface of the soil, and over this, earth brought from a distance--or occasionally cut away from the surface immediately surrounding the chosen site, so as thereby to add to its height--was heaped up and moulded into the accustomed form. In its progress the accompanying urns were disposed, frequently with little attention to regularity, in the inclosed area; nor is it uncommon to find along with these the bones of domestic animals. In the later tumuli are occasionally found the bronze bridle-bit and other horse furniture, and sometimes teeth and bones, and even the entire skeleton of the horse. The skeleton of the dog is still more frequently met with: and it is to be regretted that in Scotland the fact has hitherto been recorded without any minute observations being attempted on the skeleton, from which to ascertain its species, and perhaps thereby trace the older birthland of its master.[58] The Rev. Alexander Low, in a communication laid before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1815, refers to the entire skeleton of a horse discovered interred between two cists, where a large cairn had been demolished in the parish of