Dr. Hans Hildebrand, in his _Industrial Arts of Scandinavia_ (p. 50), explains in a most ingenious manner how the lion _couchant_, which so often appears in Roman art, forms the basis of the earlier kinds of zoömorphic ornament in Scandinavia. The question is, did the Irish evolve their zoömorphs independently in a similar way from a Classical or Byzantine lion, or did they get the idea from the Scandinavians after they had so transformed the Roman lion _couchant_ that all resemblance to the original had disappeared? The difficulty in settling this point is the absence of accurately dated specimens of Scandinavian art workmanship. The panels of zoömorphic ornament on some of the fibulæ of the Later Iron Age, illustrated in Dr. Hans Hildebrand’s work already referred to (pp. 58-65), bear a very considerable general resemblance to the panels of interlaced beasts in the Irish MSS., although the details are worked out differently. The whole question turns on the exact date of the Gotland brooches. If they can be proved to be earlier than the time when zoömorphism first appears in the Irish MSS., and if it is possible that the communication between Ireland and Gotland can be accounted for by the trade in silver objects and bullion existing between this country and the East, then there is something to be said for the Scandinavian origin of zoömorphism in Ireland. I believe, however, that from the evidence of the coins found with hoards of silver objects, this trade did not begin until about A.D. 800. Attention must here be called to two points which are common to the zoömorphic and anthropomorphic designs of Scandinavia and of Great Britain, namely, (1) the introduction of spiral curves to represent conventionally the folds of the skin where a limb joins the body; and (2) the introduction of figures of men grasping birds and beasts, or arranged swastica-wise grasping each other’s limbs. Here, again, it is not easy to decide whether these features were invented independently, or whether they were borrowed by the Irish from Scandinavia, or by the Scandinavians from Ireland. Whatever may be thought of the possibility of the existence of Scandinavian influence on Christian art in this country in its earlier phases, there is plenty of evidence of the development of an Anglo-Scandinavian style in particular districts where the Norse element was strong, as in the Isle of Man, and the adjoining coasts of Cumberland, Lancashire, and North Wales, and in Orkney and Shetland. The specially Scandinavian characteristics of the sculptured monuments in the districts specified are as follows:—